Several Major Challenges Facing China’s Nonwoven Fabric Industry and Its Future Development Directions


Release date:

2022/05/19

  Currently, China’s nonwoven fabrics industry is at a critical juncture marked by structural adjustment and industrial upgrading. Traditional advantages such as demographic dividends and factor endowments are waning, while new strengths—such as technology, talent, management, capital, and branding—are emerging continuously, serving as vital drivers for the industry’s sustainable development. Faced with a complex domestic and international environment and a nonwoven fabrics market that is constantly evolving, China’s nonwoven fabrics industry should remain committed to innovation and continue to actively advance supply-side reform.
  In terms of raw materials, it promotes the use of natural fibers, biofibers, regenerated fibers, and other high-performance fibers, endowing nonwoven fabric products with new functions and characteristics.
  In the manufacturing sector, we are actively promoting smart manufacturing and green manufacturing. By leveraging advanced equipment and software systems in the production process, we can enhance product quality, reduce energy consumption and emissions, and improve enterprises’ capabilities in refined management. This enables efficient coordination among upstream and downstream enterprises across the industrial chain in areas such as product development, inventory management, and logistics, thereby building core competitive advantages for businesses.
  In terms of scientific and technological innovation, we must strengthen the cultivation of high-level nonwoven fabric professionals and build robust R&D platforms, with a particular focus on researching and developing key general technologies as well as the R&D and application of priority products. In terms of market applications, on the one hand, we should proactively respond to the overarching trend of consumption upgrading and enhance the quality and sophistication of our products; on the other hand, we should actively expand the scope of nonwoven fabric applications and tap into new markets. At the standards and policy levels, we should collaborate with relevant national authorities to promote the adoption of domestic medical textile brands, thereby changing the industry’s current reliance primarily on OEM processing and exports. We should also facilitate the application of medium- and low-temperature filtration products in areas such as indoor air quality and liquid filtration. Furthermore, we should adapt to the development trend of new-energy vehicles by increasing the use of nonwovens in the automotive industry, where they play an important role in reducing vehicle weight and enhancing passenger comfort.
  In terms of overseas investment, we will encourage enterprises that meet the necessary conditions to “go global” and make direct investments, leveraging strategic initiatives such as the Belt and Road to engage in international capacity cooperation, thereby expanding the global footprint of China’s nonwoven fabric industry and mitigating risks arising from the ever-changing trade environment.

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