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| Issue date:01/02/2008 |
| ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel - Feb 2008 Issue |
| Source:Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel |
| by Annie Yang |
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Based in Quanzhou city of Fujian province, Quanzhou Haitian Textile Co Ltd (HTT) (泉州海天輕紡有限公司) is a key subsidiary of Haitian Textile Group (海天輕紡集團). Instead of working as an OEM maker, it is building up an integrated supply chain covering raw materials, fabrics, garment and marketing with substantial R&D. "This is the path of branding we are heading towards," said Wang Qi-ming (王啟明), President of Haitian Textile Group.
Wang Qi-ming |
Established in 1994, the group has set up two centers in Shanghai for market development and new technology research; and other factories to facilitate in Quanzhou knit fabric production, dyeing, after-finishing and garment making. The group has over 20 subsidiaries in addition to overseas branches situated in Hong Kong, Canada and the US.
The Quanzhou facility of HTT is equipped with textile machinery of about 2,500 units, imported from the US, Japan, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The company achieves an annual production output of 18,000 tons of knitted fabrics and four million pieces of knit garments; of which 80% are exported to Europe, the US and Japan. The annual sales revenue is about RMB 700 million.
"We will do no OEM"
Zhang Lian-jing |
In June 2004, HTT became the first mainland Chinese fabric manufacturer licensed by DuPont in the production of PTT short fiber, yarns and fabrics.
Zhang Lian-jing (張連京), Deputy General Manager of Haitian Textile Group responsible for research and development, explained that the company is not a textile processing enterprise and it currently engages few original equipment manufacturing (OEM) orders. It also plans to exit from relatively low-end OEM production.
Mr Zhang said: "When obtaining a good material, we start our R&D to understand the specification of this fiber and its potential applications, so as to bring out its benefits as much as possible. Visual appearance of the end products and hand feel are also taken into account during the research stage."
Production facility of HTT |
Using DuPont's PTT product, Sorona polymer as raw materials, HTT was able to produce its own PTT yarns called Corntec.
According to Mr Zhang, Corntec is characterized with softness, flexibility, bright colors, stain-resistance, good drape and dimensional stability. Based on Corntec, HTT developed a new, patented fabric for lingerie.
Conventional stretchy intimate wear, usually made of cotton yarns knitted with polyurethane fibers, is not comfortable enough for end users. Moreover, its nature of low heat tolerance and being difficult to dye limits the application of certain finishing techniques for this type of wear.
In contrast, HTT uses melt-spun PTT short fibers (and/or with other yarn blends) to produce a new lingerie fabric featuring good stretch capacity and good shape retention ability. It is also durable, comfortable to wear, chlorine-resistant and UV blocking.
Corntec is currently used to develop fabrics for lingerie, active wear, beachwear, wool blends and polar fleece and is a key product of HTT.
First moisture-absorbent and fast-dry fabric in China
Prior to Corntec, HTT launched the first moisture-absorbent and fast-dry fabric called CoolDry in the country a decade ago. It has subsequently offered additional features into it, including antibacterial, anti-pilling, and UV blocking properties.
"Back in 1998, the concept of moisture-absorbent and fast-dry features was unheard of in the market and clients did not see all the benefits," Mr Zhang explained.
The CoolDry fabrics of HTT were awarded as a "Top Brand in China" in 2007 as the country bestowed the first time three fabric products/brands.
HTT produces various fabrics |
Today, the moisture-absorbent and fast-dry features have become a general characteristic of most active wear brands, and HTT, as a market leader, is assisting the Chinese authorities in drafting legislation of the relevant national standards.
HTT has also been developing fabrics with various sources, including Merino wool. It co-operated with the US Unify in 2007 in developing renewable fibers using used plastic bottles or wasted polyester filaments.
In addition, the company has planned to intensify its fabric development efforts by establishing a 300,000-square-meter facility in Changshu city (常熟市), Jiangsu province.
"Under preliminary planning, it will be used to further cooperate with DuPont, and we aim to develop the new facility as a production base of new bio-based fabrics and functional fabrics," said Mr Zhang, adding that it would be complementary with the existing fabric manufacturing and garment-making in Quanzhou.
Selling directly online for small-batch orders
HTT plans to launch an online direct-selling platform that will gradually transform its business model after the Chinese New Year (early February this year).
"We have been working on this project for three years. We do not aim to sell our inventory with the online direct-selling platform. Instead, the platform helps us further optimize the internal production structure and speed up the delivery capability. We would like to have more small-batch orders, which often require a wide variety (fabric or design) to be delivered within a short period of time," explained Mr Wang.
Under the new online system, Mr Wang expected to minimize middleman costs and probably only an account manager and/or a designer would be needed to communicate with buyers. Internally, these new orders would be supported by fabric development and garment making capabilities it can draw upon within the entire group.
By the end of last year, HTT already established a new sales office in the US to directly approach local retailers.
In the US, the company also cooperates with the California Institute of Technology and supports the institute’s fashion designers with its fabric producing and garment making abilities.
According to Mr Wang, the garment making activities have been moved away from China to other lower-cost areas (e.g. Vietnam and Cambodia) in recent years. However, these emerging production bases currently lack large fabric producers to support them. This represents an opportunity for Chinese fabric producers.
Product-wise, there is a growing acceptance of new fibers for functional garments in the knitting sector. New fibers are made of bamboo and bamboo-charcoal blends, functional fibers with moisture-absorbent, fast-dry and antibacterial properties are more popular. To give complementary and integrated benefits to consumers, more blends of man-made fibers and natural fibers are expected in the future.
Another trend is that the future R&D of textiles (including fabrics) will move to Asia. By that time, China will be able to demonstrate its advantages over competitors with its full and integrated textile supply chain, Mr Wang said.
Although functional fabrics will be more common in the years to come and applied to more extensive areas, Mr Zhang feels that the issues as to how to reduce the production costs involved and how far consumers are willing and able to pay remain the challenges faced by the industry.
Meanwhile, Mr Wang said he expected technical textiles -- in particular their applications in aviation, aerospace and medically vascular tubes -- would be another growth area for the textile industry.
For further development, the "Engineering Research Center of Technical Textiles" at Donghua University in Shanghai was opened in June 2007 in collaboration with the China Nonwovens & Industrial Textiles Association (CNITA).
Building a stronger fabric brand
Quick facts of HTT |
Mr Wang is optimistic with the industry outlook, and he expects that sales revenues and profits will grow by 20% and 30% respectively in 2008 from last year.
"Instead of working as an OEM maker, we are building up an integrated supply chain covering raw materials, fabrics, garment and marketing with substantial R&D. This is the path of branding we are heading towards," said Mr Wang.
He revealed that the company was planning to go public in Shenzhen by 2009 to raise capital for further R&D. "In the next three years, instead of supplying fabrics only, we aim to strengthen ourselves by offering new, unique raw materials, such as bio-based materials," he added.
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| Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Any party needs to reprint any part of the content should get the written approval from Adsale Publishing Ltd and quote the source "ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel", Adsale Textile English Website - www.AdsaleATA.com. We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprints any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiry, please contact Editorial Department. |
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| Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Any party needs to reprint any part of the content should get the written approval from Adsale Publishing Ltd and quote the source "ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel", Adsale Textile English Website - www.AdsaleATA.com. We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprints any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiry, please contact Editorial Department. |
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