Speech by Chairman Yang Xiaojing at the 7th Executive Council Meeting of the 11th Session of CSMA and the 16th Summit of Key Enterprises in the Industry

The year 2024 is a year of reform and new quality. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee has launched a new era of deepening comprehensive reforms. Riding the momentum, China’s sewing machinery industry has advanced with the times, pursuing steady progress. Key indicators turned positive year-on-year: the industry’s annual output value reached approximately 48.5 billion Yuan, with the production of household and industrial sewing equipment totaling 11.55 million units—an increase of 23.5% year-on-year. Among 275 enterprises above designated size, operating revenues reached 31.611 billion Yuan, increased 19.04% year-on-year, and total profits reached 1.748 billion Yuan, increased 76.72% year-on-year. The industry’s total exports amounted to 3.424 billion US Dollar, an increase of 18.39%, restoring the economy to 2019 levels.

The year 2025 will mark both the closing year of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the strategic planning year for the 15th Five-Year Plan. At the end of 2024, the Central Economic Work Conference put forward the general guidelines of “seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through progress, upholding fundamental principles while innovating, establishing before breaking, and systematic integration with coordinated cooperation.” These policies emphasize vigorously boosting consumption, enhancing investment efficiency, and comprehensively expanding domestic demand as the primary task. Following the National People’s Congress and the CPPCC sessions, the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption,” which outlines 30 key tasks in 8 areas—such as actions to increase the incomes of urban and rural residents, support consumer capacity, upgrade service consumption, modernize mass consumption, and enhance consumption quality—to quickly form a powerful synergy for consumption growth and better meet the diversified needs of the people. The sewing machinery industry must seize the opportunity, refine market concepts, adjust market strategies, diversify market methods, and vigorously develop both domestic and international markets. In optimizing its global layout, the industry should consolidate new competitive advantages and drive a transformation from being “large and comprehensive” to being “strong and resilient.” On this occasion, I would like to share several thoughts on optimizing industry layout.

Demand-Driven Approach to Lead Global Layout and Innovative Development

Currently, the textile and apparel industry is undergoing profound transformation, with its development trends primarily reflecting the “New Four Modernizations”: high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated. High-end is to aggregate global resources to build world-class enterprises and brands, moving up the value chain. Intelligent is to accelerate the application of digital technology across the entire industry chain to promote industrial upgrading. Green is to build an eco-friendly industrial ecosystem that achieves harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Integrated is to break down the barriers along the industrial chain, strengthening cross-field integration, and cultivating a modern industrial system.As a key sector that provides digital leadership, technical support, and service backing in these “New Four Modernizations,” the sewing machinery industry must recognize the situation, grasp the trends, and proactively adapt to changes in downstream user demands—always ensuring that technology serves the market.

It is essential to gain insight into market changes and user needs. Strengthening market research and data analysis, leveraging big data to uncover user behavior and preferences, and establishing multi-channel mechanisms for user demand development and feedback will enable the precise identification of shifting demand trends. A user-centric R&D system must be built. A deep understanding of garment manufacturing processes should be integrated throughout the entire product design cycle, addressing multiple dimensions such as functionality, craftsmanship, product quality, fabric compatibility, aesthetics, and delivery speed. This approach will make our products and solutions more targeted and competitive. Accelerating the transformation of technological achievements is crucial. Strengthening collaboration with universities and research institutions, utilizing platforms such as association-led research projects and CNC competitions, and tackling key common and cutting-edge technologies will help overcome bottlenecks. Ultimately, this will ensure that technology translates into tools that enhance efficiency, ensure quality, and reduce labor dependence.

Innovation-Driven Expansion into Diverse Global Application Scenarios

Many claim that the industry is currently experiencing severe “involution,” which stems from various factors such as overcapacity, product homogenization, unregulated competitive practices, and similarity in competitive tracks. In the future, based on market research and with an open perspective, we must break through the traditional application boundaries in textiles, apparel, leather, and bags, and accelerate the expansion into high value-added areas such as industrial textiles, automotive, aerospace, and new materials. Through cross-industry cooperation and technological innovation, we should expand diverse application scenarios and promote the industry’s transformation toward high-end, intelligent, and green development. This will help create a new market ecology where demand drives supply and supply, in turn, creates demand—thereby cultivating new drivers for sustainable development.

In traditional fields such as apparel, home textiles, footwear, and bags, we must accelerate intelligent upgrades and actively apply digital and green technologies to modernize these industries. The focus should be on information technology, digitalization, smart production lines, and intelligent factories to meet downstream industries’ needs for high-quality, high-performance, and rapid-response automated equipment and services.

Moreover, we should proactively develop products and customized solutions for industries such as automotive, aerospace, medical health, smart home, industrial textiles, and new materials. Continuously enhancing our ability to provide personalized, customized, and rapid responses during the transformation and upgrading of downstream industries is imperative. Further research into and application of self-sensing and adaptive technologies, robot-assisted sewing, ultrasonic welding, and 3D sewing techniques should be pursued. With the aid of artificial intelligence, we can reconstruct the industrial structure and achieve integration of digital and physical processes.

Globalization as a Path to Establish a New Dual-Circulation Development Pattern

The essence of globalization lies in the global allocation of resources and the integration of markets. We must adopt a global perspective and integrate into the global economic system so that the sewing machinery industry can fully utilize both international and domestic markets and resources, achieving optimized resource allocation and efficient economic development.

Deepen the domestic market: Accurately grasp the rise of the apparel industry in central and western China, especially in provinces such as Jiangxi, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Guangxi, and Sichuan, and plan ahead. According to the China National Textile and Apparel Council’s forecast, by 2025 the total output value of the textile and apparel industry in central and western China will exceed 1.5 trillion Yuan, with an annual growth rate of 6%-8% and exports surpassing US$20 billion. We must pay attention to these trends, accelerate channel development, extend our service radius, and enhance service capabilities to build new markets, create new advantages, and foster new growth points for enterprises.

Vigorously develop overseas markets: From 2014 to 2024, our industry’s export value grew from US$2.39 billion to US$3.42 billion—a 43% increase—and the number of export destinations expanded from 190 to 207. Our target markets have broadened from traditional ones such as India, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore, and Japan to emerging markets including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia, and Malaysia. I agree with Vice Chairman Wu Jiling’s comprehensive analysis and outlook on the industry’s development last year and this year. In the next two to three years, the main driver for industry growth should be the expansion of overseas markets. “Without going global, you will be left behind” has become the industry consensus. To expand overseas markets, we must first adopt a global perspective to fully understand the market size, current industry status, competitive landscape, policies, trade regulations, and cultural backgrounds of overseas markets. We should fully leverage favorable national policies—such as those for the Belt and Road Initiative, RCEP, and various bilateral and multilateral trade agreements—to reduce export costs and enhance market competitiveness. Secondly, we need to develop targeted market expansion capabilities by combining market research, multi-brand strategies, digital marketing, trade shows, technological innovation, joint ventures, and other new models and approaches to achieve our global development goals. Building an international team with multilingual and cross-cultural backgrounds is also essential to support global business operations.

We must coordinate internal and external efforts to strengthen our competitive advantages. While consolidating our domestic market strengths and ensuring continuous improvements in technology, branding, and service, we should integrate our domestic successes with the needs of overseas markets to form a new pattern of coordinated development. By optimizing internal resource allocation and enhancing production efficiency and product quality, we can further boost our global market competitiveness and achieve simultaneous and synergistic growth in both domestic and international markets.

Responsibility as the Foundation for Creating a Global Ecosystem of Mutual Benefit

Competition is the soul of a market economy. Healthy competition creates value through technology, quality, brand, service, and fair pricing, while vicious competition—characterized by cutthroat price wars—destroys value. Last year, when some border cities in Yunnan developed well, many companies flocked there. During my field visits, I learned that some enterprises extended payment terms to two or even three years. Although CSMA will not intervene in business decisions, we, especially the leading enterprises present here, must establish a common industry consensus and a sense of responsibility, setting a model for the entire industry. Excessive price cuts and overly extended payment periods, without regard to cost, pose significant risks and do not help to cultivate a healthy and harmonious industry environment.

So, in this fierce market competition, how should we act? I believe we must: Change our competitive mindset: Follow the path of specialization, refinement, differentiation, and brand development. Focus on developing unique strengths, innovate to break new ground, and let quality win in the market. This will drive competition from a “red ocean” to a “blue ocean,” enhancing overall value. Build independent brands: Increase global confidence in and recognition of “Made in China” by telling compelling Chinese brand stories, thereby creating product and enterprise value through brand value. Practice industry responsibility: Recognize that while enterprises are competitors, they are also stakeholders. We must learn to cooperate in competition and jointly build a healthy industry ecosystem. Promote entrepreneurial spirit: Cultivate a team of outstanding entrepreneurs who embody patriotism, innovation, integrity, social responsibility, and global vision, and fully harness their initiative, proactiveness, and creativity.

Multi-Dimensional Cooperation to Promote Global Industrial Chain Synergy

No single tree can create a forest. In today’s modern economy, the coordinated development of the industrial chain is key to enhancing competitiveness and achieving sustainable development.

Within the industry, we must deepen internal cooperation. We should deepen the cooperation by further strengthening the division of labor between component suppliers and assemblers, as well as the fundamental support and market coordination among manufacturers. This will achieve resource sharing, complementary advantages, and improved overall efficiency of the industrial chain. We should also increase technological innovation cooperation between enterprises through shared technology resources and joint efforts to overcome key core technologies, thereby enhancing the flexibility and resilience of the supply chain. Establishing a mechanism for collaborative innovation—through data sharing and joint R&D—will further propel the industrial chain’s innovative development.

Outside the industry, we must strengthen industrial linkages. We should strengthen by effectively integrating government, industry, enterprises, and external professional resources. Actively participate in initiatives such as the construction of an “industrial brain” and industrial clusters to enhance and supplement the industrial chain. We should also leverage the functions of CSMA’s branch platforms to continuously organize matchmaking activities for advanced CNC, manufacturing, processing technologies, artificial intelligence, and new materials; and promote domestic and international exchanges on intelligent sewing manufacturing and digital factory solutions tailored to the needs of the apparel, home textiles, and leather products industries, thereby creating a more competitive ecosystem and promoting coordinated industry integration.

“As the saying goes, ‘A vast river gathers myriad streams, and a favorable wind fills the sails.’” General Secretary Xi Jinping of CCP once pointed out at a forum with private enterprises that in the new era and on the new journey, the prospects for the development of the private economy are broad and full of opportunities. This is the right time for private enterprises and entrepreneurs to demonstrate their capabilities, injecting confidence and strength into our industry’s development.In the tide of the times, we must set ambitious goals, uphold noble virtues, grasp the prevailing trends, and shoulder great responsibilities. By continuously optimizing our global layout, forging new competitive advantages, and opening new markets for the sewing machinery industry, we can build a new dual-circulation development pattern and write a splendid chapter of high-quality development for our industry.