Jointly organized by China Chemical Fibers Association, Chongqing Municipal Development and Reform Commission and Chongqing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, 2012 Symposium on Sustainable Development of Polyester Production Chain and Industry Transfer was recently held in Fuling, Chongqing.

About 150 attendees discussed how to maintain the sustainable development of chemical fiber industry by breaking through the bottlenecks of raw materials, technology and brand and how to reallocate the chemical fiber industry in the future.

Gao Yong, Vice President of China National Textile and Apparel Council points out that at present, chemical fibers have covered more than 60% of the more than 80 million tons of mill fiber consumption in the world, while in China this proportion may reach 75% in recent years. To satisfy people’s need, especially the need for technical textiles, China’s textile industry must rely on the development of chemical fibers, so chemical fibers will be an important part of the new growth potential for the textile economy.

He said, over the past couple of years, the textile industry has made preliminary achievement in moving from the eastern part of China to the middle and western part of China. As a result, the middle and western areas covered 19.7% of the country’s textile economy in 2011. To solve the problem of fast-increasing labor cost and labor shortage, cotton textile sector and garment sector have become key and first sectors to move westward. Due to raw material problem, the chemical fiber sector now is in a stage of reallocation. Therefore, how to take the advantages of existing technology, capital, R & D facility, brand, market, marketing channel and information platform in the eastern areas and how to take the advantages of geographic location, talent and resources in the middle and western areas, so as to promote the transfer of the advantages in the eastern areas to the middle and western areas and establish a rational and complementary industry structure are key topics for the symposium and also important issues to be taken into consideration in coming years.

As far as optimizing the distribution of chemical fiber industry is concerned, Duan Xiaoying, Chairman of China Chemical Fibers Association put forward six principles:

1) starting from the easy part and transferring step by step, first the technologically-proven sector and then large-capacity melt-spun polyester filament and staple and finally other associated fiber varieties such as polyurethane fiber;

2) moving towards oil production areas and developing a vertically integrated production chain;

3) paying attention to the coordinate development of resources, environment and industry;

4) making the most use of existing resources while reducing new locations;

5) promoting the transformation and upgrading of the industry by developing advanced productive forces, while prohibiting the transfer of obsolete production capacity, adopting advanced and adaptable technologies and developing low energy-consuming, low-pollution and high-quality productive forces;

6) developing a mixed economy, encouraging private and foreign capital to participate in the regional restructuring of chemical fiber sector, reorganizing existing assets, further enhancing the vitality of enterprises and increasing the degree of concentration of chemical fiber industry.

As a key area for taking over the transfer, Fuling District in Chongqing has made great progress in promoting the development of petrochemical and chemical fiber industries. Shen Xiaozhong, the district head introduced the development plan of chemical fiber industry. He said, the only PTA producer in the western part of China --- Pengwei Petrochemical Co., Ltd., with an annual capacity of 1 million tons, can satisfy the need of chemical fiber industry. At present, Zhejiang Longteng (Group) Co., Ltd. has decided to set up in stages a differential fiber project with annual production capacity of 1 million tons in Fuling District. Shen Xiaozhong hopes more and more companies in the eastern areas will invest in Fuling and join hands with local companies to develop the chemical fiber industry.