The data for the 1st quarter of this year shows that sales by textile businesses of scale on the domestic market grew faster by 6.14 percentage points than their performance on the overseas market.

The sales revenue of the whole sector managed a year-on-year rise of 27.55 percent. The industrial added value increased by 17.61 percent over the same period of last year. Textile companies of scale saw their sales upturn more than 28 percent on the home market.

China Textile and Apparel Council and the National Development and Reform Commission highlighted at a joint press conference the changes in the rising sector which were implied by the figures for the first 3 months of the year.

The growth of the fixed assets investment was 89.38 percentage points slower than the same quarter of last year while spending on technical transformation inflated by 39 percentage points compared with the whole 2004.

Enterprises of scale still secured profits 20.18 percent higher over the same period of last year despite of swelling costs of raw materials, energy and transportation by improving efficiency in corporate governance.

The exports, however, showed apparent slow down. The 22.91 billion USD of exports represented a year-on-year rise of nearly 19 percent, which was 5.95 percentage points down from the same period of last year.

Exports to markets used to have restrictions such as the US and EU surged more than 56 percent and accounted for 35.8 percent of the total, compared with 26.5 percent at the end of last year. But the stagnant exports to markets without restrictions dragged the total exports of textiles down.

The exports surge due to the quota removal has caused backlash. EU and US have both launched investigations on Chinese textiles, which China has expressed its objection and thought unfair.

The price index of textile exports climbed 6.5 percent partly as a result of price hike of 7.94 percent to EU market and price cut of 13.74 percent to the US market. The price changes are a natural result of the quota elimination which do not distort either the EU or US market.

Take the cotton underwear as an example. Although the figure of the US customs showed a 308 percent upsurge of Chinese textile exports, the export was only half of Honduras�� export of the same product.

Chemical fiber sector suffered a considerable profit drain of 112 percent due to rising costs which were pushed up, among others, by oil prices. And the production facilities are running at 70 percent of the capacity.

The deep processing of cotton and chemical fiber products enjoyed a profit rise of more than 30 percent.

The two departments at the press conference urged to study counter measure against sales slowdown in some markets, inflating bills for raw materials, fixed investment rebound in some areas, and trade restrictions by US and EU.

They also stressed the importance of the industrial restructuring and the way of export growth to secure the export market. And more results are expected on technical progress, discipline, pre-waning mechanism and industrial diplomacy.

By People's Daily Online