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According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the industrial added value of enterprises above the scale of China's industrial textile industry increased by 54.1 in 2020 (Figure 1). According to the China Industrial Textiles Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Association") on 330 sample enterprises, the industry's prosperity index in 2020 is 80.4, higher than the level of the same period last year, in a higher boom range.
 
Strong growth in production
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, my country's industrial textile industry adheres to the concept of high-quality development, accelerates the adjustment and upgrading of industrial structure, and has become the world's largest producer of industrial textiles. After the outbreak of the epidemic, the industry has formed the production and supply capacity of emergency prevention and control materials such as masks and protective clothing in a short period of time, providing a strong guarantee for the life, health and safety of front-line medical staff and the broad masses of the people.

According to the research of the association, the total fiber processing volume of China's industrial textile industry reached 19.155 million tons in 2020, an increase of 18.2 percent over the same period last year (see Table 1), and the average annual growth rate during the 13th five-year Plan period was 7.2 percent. As the main raw material for industrial textiles, the output of nonwovens in China was 8.788 million tons, an increase of 35.9 percent over the same period last year, and the average growth rate during the 13th five-year was 13.2 percent.

good economic benefit
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2020, enterprises above designated size (not full-caliber) in the industrial textile industry will achieve operating income of 319.84 billion billion yuan, an increase of 32.6 percent over the same period last year, and total profits of 36.53 billion billion yuan, a significant increase of 203.2 percent over the same period last year. The industry's average profit margin was 11.4 percent, up 6.4 percentage points year-on-year.

By field (Table 2), in 2020, the operating income of China's above-scale nonwovens enterprises was 175.28 billion yuan, up 54.0 percent year-on-year, the total profit was 24.52 billion yuan, up 328.1 percent year-on-year, and the gross profit margin and profit margin were 23.8 percent and 14.0 percent, both up 9.0 percentage points year-on-year.
The operating income and total profit of enterprises above the scale of other industrial textiles in which medical and health, filtration and geotechnical textiles are located reached 73.01 billion yuan and 9 billion yuan respectively, up 35.4 percent and 175.1 percent respectively over the same period last year, and the gross profit margin and profit margin reached 23.0 percent and 12.3 percent respectively, second only to nonwovens in the industry.

Affected by the epidemic, the business differentiation among enterprises in the industry continued to expand in 2020, with 325 enterprises above the scale of the industrial textile industry experiencing losses, with losses reaching 13.5 per cent, and losses of loss-making enterprises increasing by 10.8 per cent year-on-year. The economic efficiency of large enterprises is obviously better than that of small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to the statistics of the association, the operating income and total profit of all sample enterprises increased by 40.7 and 201.2 respectively, with a profit margin of 18.6. For enterprises with operating income of more than 0.5 billion yuan, the year-on-year growth rate of operating income and total profit reached 61.4 per cent and 330.9 per cent respectively, with a profit margin of 21.4 per cent; for enterprises with operating income of between 0.1 billion yuan and 0.5 billion yuan, the year-on-year growth rate of operating income and total profit was 20.2 per cent and 86.1 per cent respectively, with profit margins falling to 14.2 per cent; while for enterprises with operating income of less than 50 million yuan, its operating income fell 4.9 per cent year-on-year, its total profit grew by only 2.2 per cent year-on-year, and its profit margin fell to 5.7 per cent, mainly from various industrial clusters.

Investment heat rises sharply
In early 2020, due to the outbreak of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, the supply of nonwovens for the production of epidemic prevention materials is tight, prices rise, attracting a large number of social capital into the industrial textile industry, investment is mainly concentrated in meltblown, spunbonded and spunlaced nonwovens, masks and other fields, a number of industry backbone enterprises also announced capacity expansion plans.

According to the statistics of the association on the sample enterprises, the fixed asset investment of Chinese nonwovens industry enterprises increased by 210 year-on-year in 2020. According to incomplete statistics, in 2020, China's contract added 510 new spunbond nonwovens production lines, more than 2000 meltblown nonwovens production lines, about 160 spunlace nonwovens production lines, and about 170 needle-punched nonwovens production lines, with a total new production capacity of more than 3 million tons.

The new meltblown nonwovens production capacity equipment in the industry in 2020 is relatively simple, and the technical level is not high. After the price of meltblown nonwovens has fallen, a large number of production capacity has chosen to withdraw. The industry backbone enterprises have rich market experience, have a deep understanding of equipment and industry, and pay attention to technological innovation and product differentiation when investing.

The significant investment in the industry in 2020 is, on the one hand, due to the fact that enterprises are more optimistic about the development prospects of the industry and make layout in advance; on the other hand, enterprises have the financial resources to improve production conditions and product structure after the financial situation has improved significantly.

Import and export double growth, epidemic prevention materials exports increased significantly.
1. Export situation
According to China's customs data, in 2020, China's exports of various types of industrial textiles (not full caliber) worth 89.6 billion billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 197.9 percent year-on-year. From the main products, masks are the industry's largest export products, exports of about $52 billion, non-woven protective clothing export value of about $11 billion. By the end of 2020, China had exported 224.2 billion masks to the world, including 65 billion medical masks; 2.31 billion pieces of export protective clothing, including 0.773 billion pieces of medical protective clothing; and exports of cotton, gauze, bandages and other products to US $1.01 billion billion, up 19.7 percent year-on-year.

As the main raw material for epidemic prevention materials, the export volume of nonwovens reached 1.389 million tons, up 32.2 percent year-on-year, with a value of 5.05 billion U.S. dollars, up 62.5 percent year-on-year; the export of nonwovens-related products also maintained a certain growth rate, with the export of disposable sanitary products 2.27 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.6 percent year-on-year, and the export of wiping cloth 1.27 billion U.S. dollars, up 12.1 percent year-on-on-on-year. The export value of cord (cable) and textiles was 2.06 billion US dollars, an increase of 7.3 percent over the same period last year, while the export value of felt cloth and tents was 1.39 billion US dollars, basically the same as the previous year. Overseas orders for industrial coated fabrics and leather-based cloth products shrank due to the outbreak, with exports falling by 16.4 and 19.0 percent year-on-year, respectively (see Table 3).

In 2020, the prices of the industry's main export products have increased to varying degrees, with the average export price of masks and non-woven protective clothing rising 382.3 percent and 410.9 percent year-on-year, respectively, driven by market demand.

2. Imports
In recent years, with the continuous breakthroughs in technological innovation of China's industrial textiles, the demand for imported industrial textiles in China is decreasing year by year, but the outbreak of the epidemic has broken this law. In early 2020, due to the large capacity gap in medical masks and protective clothing, China began to purchase large quantities of masks, protective clothing and other epidemic prevention materials from overseas markets to meet domestic epidemic prevention needs.

According to incomplete statistics, in 2020, China's imports of industrial textiles worth 6.01 billion billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 24.3 percent over the same period last year. Among the main imported products, masks have the largest import demand, with an import value of about US $1.2 billion, of which the import value in the first four months accounted for more than 70% of the total import value, the import value of non-woven fabrics and non-woven protective clothing was respectively US $1.12 billion and US $0.36 billion, and the import value of textiles for structural enhancement reached US $0.66 billion, an increase of 7.2 per cent over the same period last year, the decrease reached 24.4 per cent (see table 4).

In the first quarter of 2021, my country's industrial textile industry continued to maintain a good momentum of development. The industrial added value of enterprises above designated size in the industry increased by 25.4 year-on-year; the output of non-woven fabrics of enterprises above designated size reached 1.52 million tons, an increase of 19.0 year-on-year.

From January to March, the operating income and total profit of non-woven fabric enterprises above designated size increased by 37.2 and 6.7 respectively, with a profit margin of 6.8, down 2.0 percentage points from the same period of last year. The year-on-year growth rates of operating income and total profit of textile enterprises above designated size in other industries where medical and health, filtration and geotechnical textiles are located reached 27.5 and 23.1 respectively, with a profit margin of 6.3, the year-on-year decrease was 0.2 percentage points.

In terms of international trade, from the perspective of major export products, the value of non-woven fabrics, special yarns, threads, ropes, cables and their products exported from January to March was US $2.06 billion, an increase of 60.9 percent over the same period last year, of which non-woven fabrics were exported to US $1.26 billion billion, an increase of 74.1 percent over the same period last year, and exports of 383000 tons, an increase of 50.7 percent over the same period last year.

In terms of exports of epidemic prevention materials, exports of chemical fiber nonwovens protective clothing (including medical protective clothing) were 0.99 billion U.S. dollars, up 352.6 percent year-on-year, while exports of unlisted textile products (including masks) were 4.18 billion U.S. dollars, up 0.1 percent year-on-year.

In the first quarter of 2021, the growth rate of most economic indicators of China's industrial textile industry remained in a high range, but compared with the previous month, it has begun to narrow to varying degrees, and individual economic indicators have even decreased. Although the production and sales of nonwovens and epidemic prevention materials have maintained a high growth rate, the profitability of the industry has begun to decline with the fall in prices, and the areas with little correlation with epidemic prevention materials have rebounded significantly due to the low base in the same period last year and the recovery of demand this year. With the improvement of the epidemic situation in major countries around the world and the restart of the global economy, China's industrial textile industry will continue to adjust.

Summary
At present, the industrial textile industry has entered a period of opportunity and window period for rapid development and industrial upgrading. There is huge room for future development. At the same time, the industry is also facing the pressure of adjustment and stable development after rapid growth. With the advent of the post-epidemic era, industry enterprises should be prepared in a timely manner, strengthen technological innovation and professional personnel training, vigorously promote intelligent manufacturing and green manufacturing upgrades, make up for industrial shortcomings, promote industrial upgrading, and enhance the independent control of the supply chain.

It is expected that the production and sales growth rate of China's industrial textiles industry will show a significant correction in 2021, and with the recent easing of the global epidemic, the demand for epidemic prevention materials will further decline, and the demand for non-epidemic prevention materials will gradually pick up. The industry's fixed asset investment, especially the investment in expanding production capacity, will become more cautious, but the investment in intelligent transformation and green production will continue to maintain a certain growth.

1. According to the actual production situation of spunlaced nonwovens industry in China, the Association revised the output of spunlaced nonwovens in China to 950000 tons in 2019 and adjusted the output of nonwovens in China to 6.469 million tons in 2019, thus obtaining a year-on-year growth rate of 35.9 in 2020.

2. The import and export data of masks and non-woven protective clothing are estimated according to the customs tariff number "63079000" and "62101030" respectively.

Source: Jung-International Nonwovens Industry