Xinjiang Textile Industry to Have More Than 10 Million Spindles by End of 2015

Over the past couple of years, both the central government and the local government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have staged a series of favorable policies to support the development of local textile and garment industry, attract textile and garment enterprises from outside Xinjiang to invest and set up mills in Xinjiang. All these efforts have promoted the fast development of local textile and garment industry. It is predicted that the local textile industry will have more than 10 million spindles by the end of this year.

In 2015, the textile and garment industry in Xinjiang has made further progress in merchandising and attracting investment, said Liu Yanning, head of the administrative office of Xinjiang textile industry. By the end of June, textile and garment enterprises from other areas outside Xinjiang had invested in 118 projects in Xinjiang, including 58 textile projects with total investment of CNY 26.75 billion and 60 garment and home-textiles projects with total investment of near CNY 2.93 billion. The fixed-asset investment of local textile and garment industry had reached CNY 7.05 billion, up 187% over the same period of last year. There will be 4 million new spindles to be installed this year, which will add up the total textile production capacity to over 10 million spindles by the end of this year. The garment sector has a total processing capacity of 50 million pieces and offers 67,000 jobs. The textile production capacity increased from the 5.5 million spindles in 2012 to 7.60 million spindles in 2014 and it will further increase to 10 million spindles at the end of this year. "By this growing pace, the textile industry is expected to hit the target of 20 million spindles ahead of time", said Liu Yanning.

Xinjiang is the largest cotton-growing area in China. Since 2012, it has been making great efforts to developing textile and garment industry to increase job opportunities. This strategy has been approved by the central government and upgraded to national strategy, which brings great opportunities to local textile and garment industry.

In 2014, the 2nd central working conference on Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region mapped out the plan of increasing employment by developing textile and garment industry and set the target of offering 1 million jobs by developing local textile and garment industry in the next ten years, so as to promote the long-standing stability of Xinjiang. The central government and local government each allocated CNY 10 billion to set up a special fund of CNY 20 million for local textile and garment industry. The state offered a series of supporting policies such as returning VAT to the industry. The local government also formulated a dozen of preferential policies, including lower electricity price, transportation subsidy, subsidy to Xinjiang cotton users, job training, subsidy to workers’ social security and subsidy for loans, which make local production costs 10% lower than other areas outside Xinjiang.

According to related statistics, the local textile and garment industry invested near CNY 9.52 billion in fixed assets in 2014, hitting the highest record in history, up 76.1% from the previous year. Meanwhile, it introduced 48 textile and garment projects from outside and offered 40,000 new jobs.

At present, Xinjiang has established five industrial clusters, namely Urumqi-Jichang, Shihezi-Kuitun, Korla-Yuli, Akesu-Ala’er and Kashi.

In 2015, to help more Xinjiang-made textile and garment products enter into the Middle-west Asian market, by discussing with railway department, the local government tries to launch 10 special freight trains to the Middle Asia, Russia and Europe for shipping textiles and garment westward.

According to Liu Yanning, Xinjiang has stipulated admittance system to cotton textile enterprises and printing & dyeing enterprises, so as to avoid outdated production capacities being transferred to Xinjiang from other areas and block those outdated, polluting and resources-consuming enterprises.