February was a lot more applauded for many a thing, including an effective control of COVID-19 in spite of resurgent contagions in Hebei province in the north and three provinces in the Northeast of China in January, and a smooth sailing of the Spring Festival that marked the beginning of Chinas Lunar New Year on the 12th of February and ended in Lantern Festival on the 26th of the month, where an overwhelmingly populous movement characterized homebound journey for the family gathering in the new year celebration and for the worksites on the returning trip in the equally astounding level of transportation throngs on land, sea and air, awesomely without new cases of coronavirus contacts found against this special seasonal setting!
Whats more important is the event that took place in Beijing also in February when the Chinese government held a national conference to award the great people who did great jobs in the poverty-fighting campaign over the years, making it possible for the milestone in the course of eradicating the destitute to lift approximately 100 million people out of abject poverty based on Chinas own benchmark for the poor.
We are proud to make a point that our textile industry is, as has always been, doing pretty well in providing jobs, the largest job creation sector in the national manufacturing industry, with over 100 million jobs involved in the vertically-integrated supply chain from fiber to fashion, benefitting agricultural farmers and industrial workers, making an indelible and marvelous contribution to this great undertaking for the nation and the people.
China has accomplished poverty reduction goal 10 years ahead of the priority target listed on the No.1 goal out of 17 goals in totality defined in the UNs Sustainable Development Goals(SDG) which were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that set out a 15-year plan to achieve the Goals. In 2019, the world leaders attending the SDG Summit called for a Decade of Action to pledge to mobilize financing, enhance national implementation and strengthen institutions to achieve the goals by the target date of 2030, leaving no one behind. And sure enough, China turns out to be the first Member State to “end poverty in all its forms” as the first target puts it to leave no one struggling in the swamp of despair and to lead everyone defined as “the poor” to walk up to the highland of hope, to speak nothing of the extreme poverty.
With this, our textile industry gears up for the new contributions to the remaining goals in the decade of actions in “ zero hunger, health, education, gender equality and womens empowerment, water and sanitation, energy, economic growth, infrastructure and industrialization, inequality, cities, sustainable consumption and production, climate change, oceans, biodiversity, forests and desertification, peace, justice and strong institutions, partnerships”, all of which can be broken down into sector-specific actions to address the issues by the new technology, process, equipment and innovative approaches and sustainable fashion consumption in the sustainable mode of economic growth in this largest job-creating manufacturing industry.
Editor-in-Chief
February, 2021