Xucun: From a piece of cloth to home,from village to city

By Li Xue

When the short video competition of “Start a New Journey — National Textile Industry Party Building, Cor—porate Culture Story” is in full swing and the number of likes is constantly breaking new highs, the co—host of the competition — Xucun Town of Haining City has once again attracted people’s attention.

The largest home textile cloth art production base in the country is known as the “China cloth art town” in the industry. Its development achievements of more than 40 years have enjoyed the reputation of “from a piece of cloth to a home, from a village to a city”.

However, Xucun’s participation in the short video competition as a co—organizer is a microcosm of Xucun’s commitment to the digital transformation of local indus—tries. Today’s Xucun, is actively planning the construction of world—class home textile industrial cluster pilot zone,a more digitally innovative, fashionable, environmentally friendly, and livable Xucun is already on the way.

Digitization empowers Xucun to go global and expand the circle

The pandemic has accelerated the arrival of Xucun’s digital era. In the first half of 2020, affected by the pan—demic, from January to May of that year, the sales output value of home textile enterprises above designated size in Haining fell by 18.6 percent year—on—year, profits and taxes fell by 48.8 percent year—on—year, and profits fell by 78.2 percent year—on—year.

Faced with a dilemma, advised by the local gov—ernment and the industry association, Xucun organized the Haining China — International Home Textiles Cloud Expo and the Haining Home Textile Purchasing Festi—val, mixing live with virtual, and presented new ideas,new trends, new technologies, new processes, and new products for the development of the home textile industry in the new era, and helped companies expand sales channels.

Xucun vigorously developed cross—border e—commerce. While the pandemic has affected offline sales to varying degrees, cross—border e—commerce has shown a contrarian growth trend. In this context, the Haining Home Textile Cluster Cross—border E—commerce Summit came into being,and the Haining China Home Textile City Cross—border E—commerce Pioneer Park also officially opened. It is reported that in the past year, the cross—border e—commerce entrepreneurship park and the cross—border e—commerce eco—logical service system have achieved remarkable results, which have strongly promoted the Haining home textile brand to go global and become an impor—tant platform for digitally linking the foreign trade market. In addition, online broadcasting has also become one of the channels for home textile enter—prises to expand sales.

Facing the future, digitization will still be the highlight of the transforma—tion and upgrading of Xucun’s home textile industry. In an exclusive interview with China Textile, Zhu Lijiang, secretary of the Xucun Town Party Committee,said that in recent years, Xucun has continued to expand the development of the digital economy. Relying on the platform of Hangzhou—Haining Digital Trade Center, Xucun has attracted digital trade enterprises to move in. “Up to now, Xucun has signed 58 digital economy companies, including the world’s leading digital technology companies, and the digital economy industrial clus—ter has begun to take shape.” In addition, online Home Textile City — O2OLDJ.com launched by Haining Jinyonghe Home Textile & Weaving Co., Ltd. and JD.com will also be vigorously supported and promoted by the government,opening a new journey of industrial cluster online sales.

“The 5G era is also the smart era of the Internet of everything. We will continue to attract talents and focus on introducing high—end intelligent manufacturing industries. Meanwhile, with the help of various short video platforms, do a good job in publicity, and pass the golden name card of ‘China cloth art town’ out.” said Zhu Lijiang firmly.

Hard work to achieve fashion transformation

Digitization has given Xucun a strong link with the external market. In terms of physical manufacturing, Xucun has eliminated outdated production capacity and rectified three items including land use, environmental protec—tion, and safety, so as to promote local industrial agglomeration and the stan—dardized, healthy and high—quality development of the home textile industry.

On the other hand, it is committed to high—quality development, further promotes the transformation to the fashion industry, promotes the intelligent transformation of enterprises, and promotes the promotion of the industrial brand value chain.

For example, through the introduction of equipment, Zhejiang Qinlian Textile and Weaving Co., Ltd. has improved the degree of refinement of cur—tain products, making the products more in line with the domestic market demand.

Haining Jinyate Textile Co., Ltd. organized a research and development team during the pandemic period to develop a permanent flame—retardant engineering fabric. This product has a texture of hemp and chenille interwo—ven, soft to the touch, stylish in appearance, and has antibacterial, mildew,antibacterial properties, static electricity, dust—proof and other characteristics,the fabric shading effect reaches 95 percent, suitable for hotels, schools, hos—pitals, airplanes, ships and other public places.

These are all cases of Xucun’s transformation from “a piece of cloth” to“a home”. For the market demand, Xucun’s home textiles actively cooperates with the furniture industry, soft furnishing industry, real estate industry and other industries related to home improvement, and gradually transform and upgrade to the fashion industry.

Facing the future, Xucun is ready for development

Zhu Lijiang told reporters that in the near future, Xucun is actively plan—ning a three—year plan for the construction of a world—class home textile industry cluster and economic transformation. “We will optimize and improve the industry support policy, and plan to reward more than 30 million yuan for enterprises throughout the year. Relying on the fashion colleges, we will con—tinue to import talents for the home textile industry, with the goal of expand—ing the fashion home textile industry, and continue to encourage and cultivate high—quality home textile enterprises. Meanwhile, the development of digital economy and high—end manufacturing will promote the healthy and vigorous development of Xucun’s industrial structure.”

And in the direction of development, first to promote the market. Relying on home textile city and from the design and development, production of finished products to display and sales of the whole industry chain, Xucun will continue to be a strong textile industry professional market.

The second is to upgrade industries. That is, to strengthen the support policies of the government,compile the “Xucun Fashion Home Textile Industry Plan(2021—2030)”, to lead the scientific development of the industry with the plan, and continue to promote the agglomeration and development of the home textile industry. Continuously optimize the ecology of Xucun fashion home textile industry, so that large—scale pro—duction, branding, and high—end customization develop together.

Third, upgrade the construction of the park. Zhu Lijiang explained that Xucun will standardize the con—struction of the park, continue to strengthen the upgrad—ing of the park’s infrastructure, speed up the secondary development of the park, and improve the quality of the industrial ecological beauty; use digital technology to build the digital management platform for high—quality development of Xucun industrial economy, to grasp the dynamic of Xucun industrial economy in real time.

Talents are the first resource for development, Xu—cun will accelerate to attract talents.

“First of all, supporting talent, we will focus on the Longdu Lake plate, priority layout of business center,education and medical care, vegetable market, talent apartment and other livelihood projects.” Zhu Lijiang said, “In the existing two subway stations, 1 high—speed railway station, we will continue to speed up the layout of rail transit connecting Hangzhou. We will expand the space for development in the north and south. In ad—dition, we also need policies to attract talents, giving talents preferential policies to settle down, and solving problems such as education for their children.” Zhu Liji—ang said confidently.