Japan Investing in Chinese Textile Industry

The Domestic textile industry, barely keeping its head above water on low growth, is making fierce moves to target the Chinese textile market.

Chinese textile companies, taking advantage of strong market packages, low labor cost and raw material prices, have made steady progress in developing cutting-edge technology and broadened the technology gap between Korean and Japanese companies.

Although South Korea،¯s technical advances in widely used products are at the same level with Japan, Korea،¯s technology in the high-value added textile sector is just above average.

،°Japan has advantage over industrial materials and is able to supply carbon textile to Boeing. South Korea lags behind other countries in applying advanced technology to very fine materials of specific use,،± said Moon Gi-young, an innovative strategy team manager at the Korea Federation of Textile Industry.

Korea invested $1.54 billion in the Chinese textile market, concluding 2,372 deals until the end of 2006. However, it is only one third of Japan،¯s investment volume.

Although there aren،¯t sufficient reports on Japan،¯s investment value in China،¯s textile industry, over $5 billion out of $10.2 billion of Japan،¯s cumulative investment value in the overseas textile sector has been invested in China.

Japan-based textile makers, Teijin Ltd. and Toray Industries Inc., had advanced into China،¯s textile market in the early 1990s, paving a new business path for foreign companies.

South Korea and Japan showed a wide technological gap in developing Aramid, a super textile.

Although Korea،¯s Kolon Industries Co. started manufacturing Heracron, an aramid textile, in 2006, it still lags behind other companies since the U.S. and Japan have already developed the same product more than a decade ago.

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