The 16th edition of Yiwu International Exhibition focusing on textile machinery, will be held from November 30 to December 3, 2015, at Yiwu International Expo Centre, Zhejiang. This is an annual event for knitting and apparel industry. The show offers three theme zones: Knitting & Hosiery Machinery Zone, Sewing & Automatic Garment Machinery Zone and Dyeing & Finishing Machinery Zone. Spread over an exhibiting area of more than 15,200 sq. mt. the event will see about 9,130 participants.

China’s hosiery industry

The event will explore various aspects of China’s hosiery industry. Since it is situated at a strategic location of China's development plan, Yiwu is certain to grow into an important trading point in the country. Events and forums will be held simultaneously on industry specific topics and to analyse latest trends in design. Besides, fashion designers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong will share the latest application of textile technology. All this will be showcased through product displays and shows.

Exhibitor Liu Weiming, General Manager of Yiwu Aurora Machinery Co explained that Chinese machinery has reached world-class levels in terms of function and performance. However, there is a certain gap when compared to international hosiery machineries in terms of accessories processing and post-processing. Besides, Chinese machinery is not as stable as global ones as accessories are weak in precision and hardness.

Weiming opines the country’s textile machinery industry is going through the stage of ‘survival of the fittest’. Thus, several textile machinery manufacturers are moving to Southeast Asia and India in search of cheap labour. He believes because of this, those enterprises with quality products, stable performance and advanced technology can survive.

Location, too is another positive factor to introduce them to the world. Aurora has global plans and sold machines to countries, including Russia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc, which make up 30 per cent of their sales volume. They are hoping to expand exports in coming years.

Upgradation, transformation key to grow

The knitwear and garment industry is now moving towards structural optimisation and wider range of application with rising labour and energy costs. Therefore, knitwear companies desperately need to transform and upgrade their equipment and machineries to meet market challenges.

Nicola Burini, Sales and Service Manager of LGL China (Hangzhou), says they are recognised as a leading supplier of innovative solutions for feeding yarn all across the globe. LGL has come up with an innovative range of electronic yarn feeders for knitting machineries (from circular seamless to socks, and large diameter circular and flat knitting machineries), and waving machineries (rapier, projectile and air-jet). Also, LGL yarn control solutions maintain a programmable constant yarn tension, and can increase performance of machine, increase productivity, decrease the quality of final product and reduce energy consumption with an advance sustainable high performance product. A one-stop platform for the knitting and garment industry, the Yiwu event is set to be one of the biggest trade events in China.