“Coordinated at Dalian, a garment factory, announced a holiday.”
“Coordinated at Dongguan, a shoe factory, the company encourages us to resign collectively.”
“The textile factory in Zhejiang has announced a holiday.”
…
Development has always been We are not working behind closed doors. Under economic globalization, China affects the world, and the world also affects China. Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, China’s economy has stalled, and the world has been affected by the shutdown of the world’s factories.
Now, after a difficult fight against the epidemic, many domestic industries have begun to slowly resume work. Even large shopping malls, catering and service industries have begun to resume operations. However, there is one industry that has experienced After all the hard work, he applied for resumption of work, but suffered another fatal blow.
This industry is the foreign trade industry, especially the textile and garment industry, which accounts for the largest proportion of exports. Many orders from factories have been cancelled, and the foreign trade industry is completely in the cold winter.
The textile and clothing foreign trade industry is completely in the cold winter
“I am engaged in clothing foreign trade, and it has not been long since I resumed work. , and now we are facing the pain of no orders. We don’t know when the overseas epidemic will end, so we can only endure it.”
The overseas epidemic suddenly got out of control, and the economy began to shut down instantly. The momentum that Chinese foreign trade companies have just recovered has been suppressed by the overseas epidemic.
The COVID-19 epidemic is spreading around the world, with confirmed cases in more than 160 countries and regions. As of March 24, 2020, the number of confirmed cases overseas has approached 300,000, and the number of deaths has exceeded 13,000. The situation is very serious.
The domestic textile industry has been hardest hit by the overseas epidemic. Textile factories that specialize in exports receive a large number of overseas order cancellations every day.
“Adidas and Nike in Canada are closed.”
“I have an order from JCP, and I sent an email today to inform us of the suspension. “Yes.”
“My order for 300,000 meters was canceled yesterday. The customer called for a pause. All production was already on the machine. How can I stop it? I can’t really do it now. It’s nothing if you don’t do it, it’s a mess.”
The boss is worried, and the employees are even more worried. Affected by the epidemic, overseas merchants can only postpone the delivery of already paid orders, and cancel them one after another without paying. orders, and no new orders are generated. A large number of employees in the foreign trade industry began to complain:
“Foreign trade is going to be cold. Today the manager said that several major American customers are canceling orders. The company will not go bankrupt, right? I originally wanted to do this this year.” I hope I can work hard.”
“The most worrying thing has happened. American customers have begun to cancel orders. There is no way to postpone them. Most of the orders are gone. The situation is like this. Is it serious?”
“All I received in the morning were news of order cancellations from Europe and the United States. The boss personally came down to hold an emergency meeting, canceled all European and American orders, and stopped taking orders. Too bad It’s terrible. I think if the epidemic in Europe and the United States continues to develop like this, the foreign trade industry will have to take a break.”
No matter whether orders are canceled or reduced, life for these companies will be bitter, and most of them will It is a labor-intensive industry, and the current trend is to reduce labor costs. Many companies are forced to take “holidays” in order to reduce operating costs. As for when the holiday will last, it may be two to three months or longer. It all depends on the effectiveness of global epidemic prevention and control and the degree of economic recovery.
If an employee voluntarily proposes to resign, the salary can also be paid until the end of March this year, calculated based on the actual number of days.
The impact affects the upstream and downstream of clothing, domestic and foreign countries
The epidemic in Europe and the United States has affected spring and summer orders for clothing foreign trade, and winter clothing bosses are also worried about being affected.
Although the sales season for down jackets is in late autumn and winter, a down jacket production factory owner said that since the outbreak of the epidemic in Europe, his heart has been hanging, “I am worried about epidemic control.” If you don’t, the order will be cancelled.” The European customers of this factory are located in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries, which have been severely affected by the epidemic recently.
Boss Cao Hui (pseudonym) told reporters that it is currently difficult to send samples and materials to Italy. He is worried that other countries such as France will also encounter difficulties one after another. “When I contacted Italian customers before, they seemed indifferent. Now they are getting nervous and asked us to send masks. We sent a lot of masks.”
Cao Hui’s In addition to down jackets, the factory also produces other outerwear products. He said that an American customer has told him that the situation is very bad. He was originally expected to ship a batch of thin jacket products in April, but the American customer told him that he needs time to consider whether to produce this batch of goods. .
Orders for down jackets are generally received from March to April and shipped from June to August. He said that customers have recently placed some orders, but he is not at ease and hopes that customers can pay the deposit. Some customers are willing and some do not agree.
In principle, customers cannot cancel orders that have already been produced, but Cao Hui is worried that the epidemic will have more negative impacts on the European and American markets. If consumer confidence continues to decline, customers will still cancel orders, so He chose to postpone the delivery date, not produce for the time being, and continue to observe the customer’s country.Fees can return to previous levels.
The clothing practitioner said that some clothing companies are currently laying out summer, autumn and winter products, but there is no bigger bet than the same period last year. “Every aspect of economic life will be affected in 2020, and the consumer confidence index will not recover too well.” The possible situation is that due to financial strength, some brands have stopped operating and been eliminated, and the market has been divided up by brands with stronger financial strength. Therefore, for For some brands, the possibility of market reshuffling is an opportunity.
She predicts that clothing consumption will not recover until May 1, and hopes that the “May Day” holiday will bring a qualitative leap to the market recovery.
Large producers are already seeing signs of improvement. The person in charge of production of a large manufacturer said that in the Chinese market, some customers did cut orders due to lowering demand forecasts in the early days of the epidemic, but recently some customers have increased their order quantities. “They believe that the domestic epidemic has been controlled, and they expect business to Growth will resume.” He said that some other customers, because other suppliers have not yet resumed normal production, have turned to place orders with Esquel.
A clothing supplier said that with the domestic epidemic under control, the domestic market may improve next. “Many people have already You can move around now, and my wholesaler expects to be able to stock the country in ten days.”
For brands and factories in the industry chain, perhaps now is the time to be bold and careful. . “I suggest that everyone should place some firm orders now, leaving 30%-40% of the expected amount. You can advance to attack and retreat to defend. If the market does not rebound as expected in the future, there is still room for maneuver. If the recovery is better, We can also quickly increase orders,” the clothing supplier said. </p
