China's largest exploiter and producer of professional uniforms, set up by merging 41 textile firms located in more than 20 provinces, kicked off operations over the weekend.

The new company, the Jihua Light Industry Group Co., Ltd, will produce more than 60 million uniforms and 130 million pairs of shoes annually, Liu Sansheng, board chairman of Jihua, said at the July 6 ceremony celebrating the launch of the company.

At present, Jihua's production capacity ranks first in Asia, Liu said.

All of the 41 firms were formally local branches of the Xinxing Pipes Group, the major producer of military logistics products and one of the 166 central state-owned enterprises of China.

The textile firms, with a total sales volume of 6.3 billion yuan (792 million U.S. dollars) in 2005, export more than 500 million yuan worth of military logistics goods annually.

According to sources with the China National Garment Association, China has become the largest producer and consumer of uniforms. There were at least 25,000 firms producing uniforms in China by the end of 2005.

Source: Xinhua