Zhejiang province, after years of rapid growth, has become a leading manufacturer and exporter of textile products in China. Statistics showed that the above-scale textile enterprises from Zhejiang province generated total sales revenue of RMB 725.8 billion yuan (106.27 billion US dollars) and good delivered for export amounted to 222 billion yuan (32.5 billion US dollars) in year 2008. Out of main textile products, Zhejiang takes the first place nationwide in terms yarn, chemical fiber, dying and printing fabric, silk, garment, home textile, industrial textile, etc, among which, the province has an absolute advantage in chemical fiber manufacturing as its annual output accounts for 40.8 percent of the country´s total.

Zhejiang lately reveals the following future direction of technology and product development for its textile industry:

1. The province will emphasize on the development of high-tech and high value-added polyester fiber, polyamide fiber and urethane elastic fiber; enhance the proportion of differential fiber and the exploitation of functional fiber material with characteristics of anti-static, flame resistance, high moisture adsorption, anti-bacterial and UV protection, as well as high-performance fiber with high-strength & high-modulus, high temperature resistance, anti-corrosion, and burning resistance advantages. It is expected that the proportion of differential fiber will reach 45 percent by the end of year 2011, up from current level of 30 percent. Besides, Zhejiang will encourage and support joint R&D projects on fiber, yarn, fabric, dyeing and finishing technologies to create harmony in up-down streams industrial chain.

2. The province will make efforts to upgrade industrial technology and wash out lagged equipments for high-grade yarn and fabric manufacturing:
--To encourage the adoption of blowing-carding machine, combing machine, compact spinning machine, automatic rotor spinning machine, air-jet spinning machine, combined spinning and winding frame, and various types of shuttleless looms;
--To focus on the development of stimulation fabric and multi-fiber blend woven fabric; promote the linkage development of fiber, yarn, weaving technology, printing, dyeing and finishing technology; and break the weak link in printing, dyeing and finishing process;

3. Zhejiang will promote its design capability and processing technology in garment manufacturing sector and expand production of high value-added garments like suits, fashion apparel, shirts, casual wear, silk garments and children´s wear. It also plans to speed up the construction of garment sales network in order to fully encourage enterprises to improve brand management;

4. Emphasis will be placed on support for the production of silk, spun silk, and mixed pure silk fabric. The province will also improve its printing, dyeing and finishing technology to produce silk products with high color fastness, anti-wrinkle, and anti-shrinkage characteristics; enlarge the application of silk composite in large fields, especially for home textile manufacturing.

5. Focus on the development of industrial textiles including geosynthetics, automotive interiors, cord fabrics, filter-media, medical textiles, high-grade leather and padding cloth; enlarge the application of industrial textiles in large areas like water conservancy projects, highway construction, environmental engineering, auto industry, pharmaceutical and chemical industry, health care and national defense industry, etc.

In addition, Zhejiang province also emphasizes the key points of its technology development plan:

1. R & D and industrialization of large-capacity melt direct spinning technology for differential PET fiber;
2. Industrialized R&D on new multiple varieties of polyester;
3. Processing Technique and application of high-performance composite nonwovens;
4. R&D on new type of medical protective fabric;
5. New compact spinning technology;
6. Rotor spinning technology for medium and high count yarn;
7. High intelligent wide shuttleless looms;
8. New technology R&D for silk manufacturing;
9. Enzyme treatment technology;
10. Automatic screen making technology;
11. New digital printing technology;
12. Research and development of ERP system oriented to textile industry;
13. E-business platform for textile industry;
14. R&D and application of EIMS system for garment enterprises.

Source: China Textile Leader