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2007-9-12
JIN, Bo @ China Textile Planning Institute of Construction
Ramie, commonly known as China grass, white ramie and green ramie, is one of the group referred to as the bast fiber crops. It is a hardy perennial belonging to the nettle family, which can be harvested up to 3 times a year. It produces a large number of un-branched stems from underground rhizomes and has a crop life from 6 to 20 years. The bark contains gums and pectin’s causing the fibers to be useable only after chemical treatment. The true ramie or “China Grass” is also known as “white ramie” and is the Chinese cultivated plant. It has large heart shaped, crenate leaves covered on the underside with white hairs that give it a silvery appearance.
Ramie was originated from China thousands of years ago and is the oldest textile fibers used in China. The fact that some incomplete slices of ramie fabric made 4700 years ago .were unearthed in Wuxing, Zhejiang Province shows that ancient Chinese had already mastered high-level ramie processing technology. The ramie textile had strong national local conditions and customs, and it also accumulated the abundant ancient Chinese culture, for example, in the Spring and Autumn Period, ramie clothes had been regarded as top-grade gift by the nobles.
Today, the main producers of ramie are China, Brazil, Philippines, India, South Korea and Thailand. Only a small percentage of the ramie produced is available on the international market. Japan, Germany, France and the UK are the main importers.
Ramie fiber is endowed with lots of advantageous properties. It is very durable, pure white in color and has a silky luster. It has wide range of applications such as, dresses, suits, skirts, jackets, pants, blouses, shirts, children wear, mixed with cotton in knitted sweaters, home fashion
curtains, draperies, upholstery, bedspreads, table linens, sheets, dish towels, sewing threads, handkerchiefs, parachute fabrics, woven fire hoses, filter cloth. Ramie is most often blended (common is 55% ramie/45% cotton) with other fibers for its unique strength and absorbency, luster and dye-affinity. When blended with high-quality cotton it offers increased luster, strength and color. When mixed with wool, ramie adds lightness and minimizes shrinkage. When blended with rayon, it offsets the low wet strength. It is reported to have a tensile strength eight times that of cotton and seven times greater than silk. However, other reports claim that the tensile strengths of cotton, flax, hemp and ramie are similar. These discrepancies can be partly attributed to the effects of source of supply, method of processing, the test conditions, temperature and humidity, on the fiber strength. The stems of ramie grow to a height of 1~ 2.5 meters. The most suitable climate for ramie is one which is warm and humid, with an annual rainfall of at least 1000 mm. Well established plants can tolerate drought and frost, but grow better without. As ramie productivity is high it can rapidly deplete the soil of nutrients.
Ramie fiber has a ditch-shaped cavity and multi-holes on its wall, so the ventilate quality is about three times higher than the cotton fiber. At the same time, ramie fiber contains pyramiding and urine which can bate the golden staphylococcus and coli form. It has functions like anti-decay and anti-bacteria. It is suitable to be used in many kinds of health-care products, it has been regarded as the "King of all natural fiber".
China has widest ramie planting area and is renowned for its highest output and best quality in the world. The output of Chinese ramie accounts for more than 90% of the total output of the world.
During the “10- 5th” period, the total output of processed ramie, linen, hemp etc amounted about 6000 thousand tons, only about 1% of that of natural fiber, the sale of apparel and home textile products made of ramie, linen, hemp etc makes up less that 1%. Why is Chinese ramie industry lagged so far behind the other textile sectors and what is the way ahead of China’s ramie industry? Equipped with great curiosity and interests, the experts from China Textile Planning Institute of Construction paid a 10-day visit and investigation to Yi Yang City, a beautiful city whose ramie output amounts about 40% of that of China as well as Han Shou City, An Xiang City and Dong Ting City. We have interviewed local government officials, textile entrepreneurs, ramie mill workers and ramie vendors. The visit and investigation give us a clearer picture of problems and obstacles which have backfired China’s ramie industry.
Problems and obstacles could be summarized as the following:
1. Lack of ramie price-stabilization mechanism
As an important source of natural fibers, ramie has not yet gained as enough attention as cotton from the legislatures. In China, cotton industry has been strictly controlled by the government from the nineteen fifties onward, with central determination of cotton planting areas in order to achieve a set target of production. All cotton was purchased by the state and distributed according to a state plan. In 1978, rural reform resulted in the establishment of a “production responsibility system”, removing the direct control of government on planting decisions and allowing farmers to make adjustments based on the prices received. However, the government has maintained control over cotton trade and farmers are obliged to sell to the state. All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, designated as the sole cotton marketing agency has played an important role in stabilize the cotton prices at a tolerate level to farmers, while there is no such a price-stabilization mechanism for ramie. Due to this cause, the price of ungummed ramie has always fluctuated wildly. Ramie dropped violently from its peak price of 13000 RMB/ton five years ago to the bleeding price of 5000 RMB/ton last year, which severely hurt the enthusiasm of the farmers to plant ramie, which makes the price of ramie more volatile.
2. Lack of standardized trading centers
Unlike cotton and chemical fiber that have well developed trading systems, there are no standardized trading centers for ramie. Because of that, ramie mills normally need to go to the ramie vendors’ warehouse to buy ramie or authorize them as purchasing intermediaries to buy from either farmers or other vendors. Such a scenario will undoubtedly increase the trading cost and bring extra financial burden to both ramie mills and ramie vendors.
3. Lack of commonly-accepted quality standards
Unlike cotton whose quality and grade have been clearly standardized, stipulated and could be tested by instruments, there is no such a grading system for ramie. As mentioned above, ramie could be harvested 3 times a year and the quality and price of ramie at different harvest seasons are quite different. Qualities of ramie also vary with the different climate and soils where it grows. Ramie farmers and vendor always mix the different quality ramie, expecting to sell at better prices. Such a mixture will always bring side effect on the qualities of yarn, fabric and apparel made of ramie and hurt the interests of ramie mills.
4. Lack of ramie industry clusters
Textile clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected, textile-related companies and institutions in a particular field. Textile clusters encompass an array of linked industries and other entities important to competition. They include, for example, suppliers of specialized inputs such as components, machinery, and services, and providers of specialized infrastructure. Textile clusters are simply an area, where all units which are producing similar/dissimilar kind of textile product and which are related to skills, technologies, or common inputs, suppliers, etc. Many well developed textile clusters in China include governmental and other institutions- such as universities, standards-setting agencies, think tanks, vocational training providers, and trade associations - that provide specialized training, education, information, research, and technical support. Textile clusters in China are very successful and enable thousands of Chinese textile and apparel companies global comparative advantages. Textile clusters promote both competition and co-operation. Rivals compete intensely to win and retain customers. Competition is the seed of cluster, without vigorous competition, a cluster will fail. Yet there is also co-operation, much of it vertical, involving companies in related industries and government body and other financial institutions. Competition can coexist with co-operation because they occur on different dimensions and among different players. Textile cluster also allows companies to operate more productively in sourcing inputs; accessing information, technology, and needed institutions; coordinating with related companies; and measuring and motivating improvement. The advantage of textile cluster may be viewed from customer, producer and supplier angle which is as given below.
With reference to customer:
a. Approachable, easy to find
b. More choice, more variety with reasonable rate.
With reference to producer:
a. Availability of land on reasonable rate.
b. Relaxation in government rules and regulations
c. Availability of good infrastructure
d. Availability of skillful labor, i.e easy to get skillful labor
e. Centralized purchasing
f. Relaxation in tax.
g. Easy to handle scrap disposal. So that they will get sufficient cost return
With reference to suppliers:
a. Approachable
b. Centralized supplying
c. Proper logistics cycle.
d. More customer
e. Cost saving in transportations
f. Bulk order
g. High consumption
Unfortunately till now, no ramie industry cluster has been developed and established in China. In either Hunan province or Sichuan Province where ramie industry has developed for quite a long time and is vitally important to the local economy, there is no indication of ramie industry cluster.
5. There are not many prominent branded end-products made of ramie in the market
HUNAN ISUNTE GARMENTS CO.,LTD, a flagship enterprise in China’s ramie industry, is one of the few out of thousands of companies that extend its business scope to the end-products, such as casual wears, T shirts and professional uniforms. Due to historical reasons, ISUNTE has not developed as smoothly as its top executives have expected. ISUNTE has not yet gained the deserved market shares as people have imagined. The majority of the ramie enterprises are merely spinning yarn and/or weaving fabric. Lack of prominent branded end-products made of ramie in the market is the main reason why ramie products never become the mainstream commodity in billions of Chinese people’s life. Further, designs, patterns, hand-handle and color combination of ramie products need greatly improved to attract consumers’ eyeballs.
6. Lack of well-developed and ready-for-use ramie textile machinery
In China and in the world, there is no well-developed and ready-for-use ramie textile machinery for ramie companies. The textile machines used in the ramie plants are normally second hand re-structured or re-adjusted textile machines for cotton and/or chemical fiber mills. For farmers, they mainly utilize manual labor to cultivate and harvest ramie due to lack of affordably-priced machines. The research of Chinese ramie processing machinery needs strengthened and should be stretched on the ways of developing medium and large processing implements of ramie fiber with industrial scale; developing ramie harvester and forming a complete set of cultivating, harvesting and decorticating machinery of ramie; improving the present ramie decorticators; developing ramie decorticator with multifunction.
7. Environment-friendly fiber extraction technology needs further developed
Extraction of the fiber occurs in three stages. Firstly, the cortex or bark is removed, either by hand or machine, in a process called decortications. The second stage involves scraping the cortex to remove most of the outer bark, the parenchyma in the bast layer and some of the gums and pectin. The third stage involves washing, drying and degumming of the residual cortex material to extract the spinnable fiber. Details of the degumming processes tend to be regarded as commercial-in-confidence information. Most of the processes involve a treatment with caustic soda to dissolve the residual pectin and gums. Most of the ramie plants we have visited are still using the chemical treatment for extraction of the ramie fiber. The chemical treatment has brought lots of pollution problems and is now strictly prohibited by both central and local governments. Yuanjiang Star Ramie Industry Co., Ltd is one of the very few that have been investigating and experimenting bio-treatment for quite a long time and have made applauded progress. Whether bio-treatment technology is well developed and could be widely used in China’s ramie industry and whether bio-treatment technology could be properly utilized to avoid bio-pollution need further investigations and testaments.
The above-mentioned seven problems and obstacles have hampered the rapid development of China’s ramie industry based on our investigations and observations. I believe that the joint efforts of the governments, ramie enterprises, research institutions, textile machinery producers to solve the problems and kick away the obstacles mentioned above, in detail, establishing ramie price-stabilization mechanism, establishing standardized trading centers, fastening the process of ramie industry cluster formation, offering the end-user market more branded ramie products, developing customized ramie processing machines and developing the environment- friendly fiber extraction technology could pave a fast track for China’s ramie industry in the future.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Mr. MA, Yong, Mayor of Yi Yang City of Hunan Province, Mr. HU, Zisheng, President of ISUNTE, Mr. QIU, Shanxiang, Vice-President of ISUNTE, Mr. LEE Hsing-kao, President of Yuanjiang Phosphor Ramie Industry Co. Ltd, Mr. WU, Longcai, Vice-General Manager of Hunan Guangyuan Ramie Co. Ltd. for their generous support and their great insights they share with me without which this paper would not have existed.
china textile
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