China Dyeing & Printing Association (CDPA) pointed out the country´s dyeing and printingindustry had experienced not only a sharp slowdown in production growth, but also a continued decline in export and investment growth over last year, when undertaking the restructuring campaign and facing the challenges of current global finance crisis, increasing costs and macroeconomic policy.

According to CDPA, there were 2081 dyeing and printing enterprises having considerable scale in China during the first 11 month of 2008, an increase of 17 firms than previous year, with the output of dyed and printed fabrics reaching 44.83 billion meters, up 4.13 percent year-on-year and the growth rate was 4.57 percentage points lower than the same period of 2007. The total industrial output value was 194.23 billion yuan, up 12.55 percent year-on-year, but slowed down by 0.81 percentage points compared with the average growth rate in January-November period of 2007. The sales revenue totaled 190.3 billion yuan, an increase of 13.02 percent, registered growth rate down 0.37 percentage points.

The combined profit of dyeing and printing enterprises with a considerable scale amounted to 5.82 billion yuan in the first 11 months of last year, down 3 percent, reporting the first negative profit growth since 2000. The sales profit rate was 3.12 percent, being 0.33 percentage points lower than the average profit margin of China textile industry during the same period.

Almost 23.16 percent of the above-scale dyeing and printing enterprises suffered losses in the same period, increasing by 4.75 percentage points from a year ago. The sector realized investment of 7.83 billion yuan, up 4.31 percent, 8.83 percentage points higher from the figure registered in 2007, but still 4.44 percentage points lower than the growth rate of the whole textile industry in January to November period of 2008. There were 163 newly construction projects and 61completed projects in China´s dyeing and printing sector in January-November period of 2008.

Total import and export value of 6 major categories of printed and dyed products amounted to 13.85 billion US dollars in January-November period of 2008, an increase of 11.44 percent from a year ago, with trade surplus soaring 26.78 percent to 8 billion US dollars. In which, the export amount was 11.16 billion meters valued at 10.93 billion US dollars, up 5.24 and 16.61 percent separately in volume and value term, and the average export price rose by 10.80 percent to USD 0.98 per meter. Suffering from many negative factors such as RMB appreciation, the country´s dyeing and printing enterprises made corresponding adjustments in their export destinations during year 2008. The export to Africa, Europe and America accounted for 26.71, 11.62, 14.84 percent of the total respectively, while that to Asian market dropped to 46.34 percent of the total. According to customs statistics, major export destinations of the six main categories of dyed and printed products included Benin, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and Brazil. The amount exported to these countries and regions covered 32.02 percent of the total.

The imports of printed and dyed fabric during the same period stood at 2.03 billion meters, worth of 2.93 billion US dollars, down 13.27 and 4.39 percent respectively with the average import price at USD 1.44 per meter, an increase of 10.25 percent.

Source: China Textile Leader