International Textile Federation 2020 Annual Conference Opens, Nine Topics In-Depth Discussion Of Global Textile Supply Chain Reconstruction Under The Epidemic Situation

On October 20, the 3-day International Textile Federation 2020 annual conference officially opened. This annual meeting was jointly organized by the Korea Fiber Industry Federation and the International Textile Federation Secretariat. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the meeting was held in the form of video. The main venue was located in Seoul, South Korea, with one sub venue in China, Brazil and Germany. The theme of this annual meeting is "new crown pneumonia epidemic: reshaping the global textile supply chain".

Industry leaders, experts and scholars from various countries and regions have focused on "Korean textile industry", "management and data", "fiber (cotton + man-made fiber)", "sustainability and circular economy", "SLCP social labor integration project", "the future of China's textile industry", "climate action Charter for fashion industry", "textiles for innovation and technology" and "cooperation" To conduct in-depth exchanges and discussions on the nine topics.

Sun Ruizhe, President of China Textile Industry Federation, Wang Tiankai, former president, Duan Xiaoping, Yang Zhaohua and sun Huaibin, vice presidents of China Textile Industry Federation, as well as heads of various departments and professional associations of China Textile Federation attended the meeting on the opening day of October 20 in Beijing Branch.

Christine Schindler, director general of IFN, presided over the annual meeting

At the opening ceremony, the president of the International Textile Federation, Cheng Qihe, made a speech. He pointed out that despite the epidemic of Xinguan, globalization is still of great significance to industrial development. At present, the investment and consumption markets have changed due to the impact of the epidemic, and the current dispute between China and the United States means that the free trade will come to an end. In his speech, Cheng Qihe stressed the digital upgrading of the industry, polyester overcapacity, environmental problems caused by future climate change, and the social responsibility that the industry should bear.

Quan Guangyu, director of Seoul Institute of global economics, delivered a report on "reshaping the global economic and geopolitical pattern in the post epidemic era: challenges and opportunities for the textile industry". He said that the outbreak of the new crown epidemic has a serious impact on the world's social economy. It is estimated that the world economic GDP will be lost by 3% - 10%. If the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States is not controlled, the loss will be even greater. The impact of the epidemic on different countries and industries is different. Textile industry is an industry relying on global supply chain, so it is greatly affected. But China is an exception. China is the first country in the world to emerge from the epidemic tunnel. At present, the world economy is generally improving, but recovery and rebound must not be confused. Countries around the world are introducing economic stimulus policies, leading to a temporary rebound in the economy, but full recovery will take time.

Three key words: globalization and global economic decoupling. He explained that the escalation of the conflict between China and the United States worries the world and hopes to find a solution eventually. De globalization should not be understood as the end of globalization, but as the reshaping of globalization. The focus of the supply chain is still in China, but supply chains in other regions are also emerging. Another big trend in the future is that digitization is accelerating.

South Korean experts expound the transformation of domestic textile industry platform

The first topic of the first day of the meeting focused on "Korean textile industry".

Li Xiangyun, chairman of Korea Fiber Industry Federation, pointed out in his speech that South Korea's textile and garment industry is famous for its high quality, fashion sense and reasonable price. If the industry wants to survive, it must meet various challenges, embrace the digital and the fourth industrial revolution and the challenges brought by the epidemic. Among them, the most important thing is to be environmentally friendly and realize sustainable development, which is also a common problem faced by mankind.

Jiang Taizhen, a professor at Seoul National University of South Korea, pointed out in his "platform transformation of Korean textile industry": the world economy will be very different before and after the epidemic. At present, the prevalence of Global trade protectionism, climate change, sustainability, AI Artificial Intelligence and other fields will have a great impact on fashion industry and textile and clothing industry. Among them, artificial intelligence and digital platform are the most urgent technology shocks faced by the industry. In the future, cloud computing and 5g innovation will make our lifestyle more intelligent. Professor Jiang Taizhen cited robots as an example. He pointed out: the use of robots has now entered the commercial stage. It is estimated that 20 million robots will enter the manufacturing industry by 2030, and each robot will replace 1.6 workers. In this decade, the intelligence of robots will be upgraded. This is undoubtedly a subversive change for the current manufacturing industry.

Professor Jiang Taizhen pointed out that South Korea's textile industry has sufficient talent reserve in the field of digitalization and fashion design, and the fashion trend of South Korea has a certain influence in the world. In the future, South Korea should speed up the deployment of artificial intelligence and digital platform, improve the sense of responsibility of textile and clothing industry, and cope with environmental problems such as climate change.

Aimee Kim, a consulting firm of McKinsey (South Korea), analyzed the role of consumption in the future economic recovery in his speech "fashion industry under the new normal". He believed that China can be said to be the best in the world, and it may return to normal level by the end of this year. He also believes that the sustainability of future business models, as well as digital applications, will be key to getting the economy back on track.

Intellectualization contributes to sustainable development of textile industry

The second topic of the meeting focused on "management and data".

Thomas Gries of the Textile Research Institute of Aachen University in Germany and his assistant introduced their research results on "digitization of nonwovens production". It pointed out that the industry of non-woven products has shown double-digit growth in all countries and regions in the world in recent years, showing a huge development potential at present. However, we are now in a digital era, sensors, artificial intelligence and so on have brought great progress to the manufacturing industry, and the production of non-woven fabrics has a high degree of automation. If the quality is improved by improving process control, the production cost will be reduced to the lowest. According to Thomas Professor Gries's assistant said that Aachen University is well-known in language recognition and artificial intelligence, and has built a joint studio with Google. In the field of non-woven intelligence, they have also established a digital non-woven innovation center equipped with the most advanced non-woven production machines. The ultimate goal of all this is to realize the sustainable development of the industry and the solution of green and clean production Solutions.

Gilberto louureiro, from Portugal, gave a speech on the impact of digitalization on textile factories. He said that a small defect in textiles will affect product pricing, and the defects in various links will affect the whole supply chain. Therefore, relying on science and technology can interact all aspects of the industrial chain, from spinning, weaving to clothing for digital control, reduce personnel participation, realize the whole process automation, ensure zero defects, and realize the maximum value of the textile supply chain. In the future, computer vision and machine learning technology will revolutionize the textile industry.

Jag gill Sundar from the United States shared the theme of "how data, machine learning and artificial intelligence support the compliance, sustainability and transparency of the textile industry". It pointed out that sustainability is not a trend, but a must for the textile industry. Jag gill Sundar introduced the digital platform they developed based on big data for the decision-making reference of manufacturers and brands in the textile industry chain. Jag gill Sundar said: at present, 50% of the products in the United States can not be sold at a discount, which will cause a great waste of resources. If these results can be converted into data, it can provide relevant decision-making reference for producers during the production period, which will greatly avoid such a situation. Jag gill Sundar believes that the United States should embrace new ideas as soon as possible, do a good job in the supply chain system of the textile industry, structure unstructured data, and promote the transparency of industry development. Jag gill Sundar introduced that their platform based on data and blockchain technology has been successfully applied to the financial field and will be promoted in the manufacturing field in the future.

In the next two days of the conference, experts and scholars from various countries will also be invited to discuss topics such as "fiber (cotton + man-made fiber)", "sustainability and circular economy", "SLCP social labor integration project", "the future of China's textile industry", "climate action charter for fashion industry", "textiles for innovation and technology" and "collaboration".

On October 21, sun Ruizhe, President of China Textile Industry Federation, will give a keynote speech entitled "the future of China's textile industry"; Yan Yan, deputy director of China Textile Information Center, will give a speech on behalf of China on the theme of "creating fashion cycle: prospects for China's textile new economy" on October 22 Xu Yingxin, vice president of the Federation of trade unions, will deliver a keynote speech entitled "open China's textile industry and the world walk hand in hand".