On September 10th, the 2025 annual meeting of the Weaving Machinery Branch of the China Textile Machinery Association was held in Changshu, Jiangsu Province. Nearly 70 representatives from the textile machinery industry attended the meeting.
Gu Ping, the president of the China Textile Machinery Association, said that in the current international situation, the US tariff policy has driven the reconfiguration of the global industrial chain, and the demand for textiles in emerging markets is strong. Under the trend of re-balancing of the industrial chain, China's textile and textile machinery industries have achieved steady development.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the development of the textile machinery industry has been remarkable. From the perspective of "quality", there has been significant progress from single-machine intelligence to intelligent solutions for entire lines and entire workshops. Leading enterprises in the cotton spinning and chemical fiber sectors have achieved world-leading intelligent production lines in the textile machinery industry. The intelligent factory of Qingdao Haijia in the industry has become an industry benchmark, and enterprises such as Changshu Textile Machinery are also constantly exploring. From the perspective of "quantity", China's textile machinery output ranks first globally. From 2019 to 2024, the annual average growth rate of textile machinery exports was approximately 20%, and the trend of diversified export markets was obvious. According to the 2024 ITMF data, 45% of the new short fiber spindle numbers are in China, 73% of the new rotor spinning machines are in China, and 81% of the shuttleless looms are in China.
Gu Ping mentioned that with the empowerment of new technologies, new materials and new products in the textile industry keep emerging, and the pace of industrial upgrading accelerates. It shifts from "focusing on quantity growth" to "innovation-driven", and has broad prospects in terms of high-endization, intelligence, personalization and differentiation. Enterprises, beyond the traditional clothing and home textile sectors, can continuously focus on specific fields based on actual circumstances. For instance, the company in Huzhou, Jilibo, has developed shuttle looms for weaving vascular materials and has achieved industrial application.
The application of new technologies such as AI and digital twins is driving the industry to accelerate its transformation from "experience-driven" to "data-driven". In August, the State Council released the "Opinions on Deeply Implementing the 'Artificial Intelligence+' Initiative" to promote the extensive and deep integration of artificial intelligence with various industries and fields of the economy. AI has become a key driving force for industrial upgrading and economic high-quality development, and will also give rise to new business logic and competition paradigms. Enterprises need to pay close attention to this.
In his speech, Qian Ren, the Party Secretary and Director of the Cyangshu Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau, stated that Cyangshu is not only one of the second batch of national historical and cultural cities, but also an important advanced manufacturing node city in the Yangtze River Delta. The textile and garment industry is Cyangshu's traditional advantageous industry and important pillar industry. This is inseparable from the support of textile machinery. The textile equipment industry in Cyangshu has a long history, a solid foundation, accumulated rich experience and technical advantages, and has formed a complete industrial chain. A number of backbone enterprises, represented by Cyangshu Textile Machinery, have emerged.
Over the years, Changshu has been committed to innovation-driven development, promoting the transformation of textile machinery towards intelligence, high-endization and greenization. Key equipment enterprises have demonstrated strong domestic competitiveness and have cultivated specialized and innovative enterprises such as Changfang, Yingyang and Feilong. This has made certain contributions to enhancing the overall competitiveness of China's textile machinery industry. We look forward to close cooperation through the platform of the China Textile Machinery Association in areas such as policy guidance, industry layout, resource connection and standard formulation. Additionally, as the upstream of the equipment industry, Changshu's textile and garment industry is expecting that all textile machinery enterprises maintain confidence, focus on their core businesses, increase research and development, and strive to tackle core technologies, in order to better achieve cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Changshu will provide more efficient and convenient services in terms of policy support, factor guarantee, academic-industry cooperation and application scenario exploration, to safeguard the innovation and development of enterprises.
Liu Xin, the director of the Industry Department of the China Textile Industry Federation, shared insights on the current operation and trend outlook of China's textile industry under the new circumstances. She mentioned that as a pillar industry of the national economy and an important livelihood industry, the textile industry has undergone multiple rounds of cyclical adjustments. Currently, it is in a new normal of co-developing resilience and momentum.
Liu Xin stated that from an international perspective, global economic growth momentum has weakened, and the trend of trade and the pressure on global supply chains fluctuate along with tariff policies; from a domestic perspective, the macroeconomy has steadily improved, and policies to boost domestic demand have played a stabilizing role in stimulating consumption. The advantages of the manufacturing system, product and market adjustment measures, and the "export rush" effect have significantly enhanced the contribution of net exports.
Since 2025, the external environment faced by the textile industry has been highly complex. The implementation and effectiveness of various existing and new policies in our country have created favorable conditions for the stable operation of the industry. However, under the frequent adjustments of the US trade policy, the export situation of the industry has shown unexpected complexity. The industry is facing significant pressure in maintaining a stable and positive development trend. Currently, the overall industry prosperity in our country is in a contraction zone, the production growth rate is stabilizing and gradually slowing down, industry investment is steadily increasing, the domestic market is growing moderately, but exports are under great pressure, and the pressure to restore quality and efficiency is increasing.
When discussing the prediction of the textile industry's trend in 2025, Liu Xin pointed out that there are still many unstable and uncertain factors facing the development of the textile industry, and maintaining stable operation faces many challenges. Among them, the impact of the US tariff policy on industry exports will become increasingly evident. Due to the increase in tariff levels and the rise in trade barriers, it will have a significant impact on the layout of the supply chain. Under the complex situation, the large-scale and continuously upgraded domestic demand market will still be the "ballast stone" for the textile industry to achieve high-quality development. Under the multiple promotions of various national macro policies and policies to boost consumption, it will provide strong support for creating domestic consumption growth. Among them, the improvement of diversified and personalized consumption demands will give the entire textile industry a broad space for technological application innovation, and the industry should continuously explore the consumption market and build a fiber world where everything can be woven.
Liu Ming, the general manager of Bijiela (Suzhou Industrial Park) Textile Machinery Co., Ltd., shared relevant data on shuttleless looms and the macroeconomy and conducted an analysis. Through the analysis of the import and export data of shuttleless looms from 2010 to July 2025, the domestic substitution path and strong development trend of shuttleless looms were presented. By analyzing the changes in the width of shuttleless looms, it can be seen that the width of the warping loom and the jet loom has increased significantly, while the 190-260cm width of the jet loom remains the mainstream. By analyzing the data from ITMF, it can be found that the market share in the shuttleless loom field has remained stable over the past ten years.
Liu Ming mentioned that the Chinese economy has a significant impact on the textile industry. With China's accession to the WTO, the Chinese textile industry experienced a period of rapid growth from 2001 to 2008. However, from 2009 to 2024, the growth rate decreased significantly. Especially in recent years, the textile industry has faced considerable pressure. The industry has experienced explosive growth, with more participants, resulting in severe internal competition.
Furthermore, Liu Ming also conducted an analysis of the three major drivers of China's economic growth - imports and exports, consumption, and investment. He also analyzed data such as the gross domestic product, population, Engel coefficient, energy production value, and consumption, freight and passenger traffic volume over the past 20 years. Through these analyses, he presented the macro trends and thoughts that he observed.
Finally, he drew on the views of renowned entrepreneurs and stated that the current economic downturn is not cyclical but structural. The situation may not improve rapidly, but it will eventually improve. The current development approach should be more cautious.