Return1. The Situation of the Fundamental Production Districts of Silk in China
China is the world’s largest producer of silk with a production of about 75% of the world’s silk. The average quality of the silk is also of mid or high-quality, though China’s recognition of a great country of silk is not for brands, yet the good news is that the quality of China’s silk is very close to that of top international brands.
China’s area of mulberry is about 1250 hectares with a production of about 640,000 tons of cocoon. These two basic agricultural figures should be credible.
2. Two Fluctuations in the Chinese Silk Market in the 21st Century
With the 21st century the Chinese Silk industry has met two major setbacks. The first was the American 9.11 incident, which negatively affected the international silk trade to the point that the selling price of the produced silk dropped by 33% to the lowest price in 20 years. The second was the American economic crises which exploded in 2009 and the ensuing European debt crises of 2012. Having gone on now for about 6-7 years, this event has expressed itself in a lasting decline in the demand for Chinese silk in the international market. In the period of 5 years the true value of the export of Chinese silk fell close to a half from 90 billion USD to over 40 billion, and the export price rose to at least 50% of the total trade price making it visible that the amount of exported silk had decreased significantly. 3. An Analysis of the Trend of the Chinese Silk Industry
I inspected the Midwest silk farm gains in recent years, finding that for every acre of mulberry crop there is an average production of about 4000-6500 RMB, reaching the same levels or surpassing the levels of sugarcane, tobacco, oranges, or other cash crops. In many economic crops, oil crops (soybean, canola, etc.), sweet feed crops (sugar cane, sugar beet, etc.), fiber crops (cotton, hemp, etc.) tropical crops (rubber, etc.) are mostly in line with international prices, yet Chinese silk is not affected by the international market regardless of the production amount. Therefore, with the background that silk production can increase blindly, the price of silk can also rise rather rapidly with prices already increasing to four times as much in the past fifteen years of this century. Yet labor costs, logistics costs, and the cost of agricultural technique has also risen for times, so that there has not really been a profit increase. For the developed eastern regions, industrialization and urbanization have progressed rapidly and the area of mulberry crop has decreased. Traditional family model and trilateral backyard mulberry (residential side street, the river) are two small to be efficient and the risk of these areas of being affected by pollution is high as the youths who feed the silk worms in the middle of the night are passive. Therefore, the silk mulberry and the silk worm amount is rapidly decreasing. In recent years about every year this kind of production sees a decrease of about 5-10%. In a period of 6 years a total national production of 780,000 tons fell to only 640,000 tons, which is a decrease of about 18%.
Silk overproduction and surplus are the two big factors which make it so that the profit of silk is decreasing with each year and agriculturalists are therefore no longer careful in their production of silk. This is leading to decrease in the quality of silk with each passing year.
4. Improvement and Upgrading in the Chinese Silk Industry still has Long Way to Go
As we look towards the next ten decade of Chinese silk we should not neglect the difficulties before us. On the contrary it is now it is the narrow escape from the problems of the silk industry that will prompt us to rise from the ashes, and now is a great opportunity for the Chinese silk industries transformation and renewal from the current difficulties. General Secretary Xi proposed the construction of a Silk Road economic belt of strategic interest and people are giving silk unprecedented attention. That people are now turning toward the pursuit of the good life will certainly impel the domestic demand for silk. The eight ministries and commissions under the State Council have issued a document for the strategic transformation of the silk industry titled "Our views on promoting the healthy development of Silk Industry," and the Third Plenum of the 18th policy measures enhance confidence in a stronger industrial chain. Many of the party municipal committee governments of the silk producing districts of China have plans for the revitalization of the industry, and the reality of market competition and the industrial environment are forcing us to change the active laws for innovation. Capital and human resources have begun to become the prospects of our industry. The five thousand years of Chinese silk production have had periods of greatness and decline along with the Chinese people. We firmly believe that our people’s silk industry will rise with the revival of our people and certainly will let a generation of silk people’s dreams of silk to merge into the great Chinese dream making both the future of China and the world better.
