EU textile and garment enterprises export encounters "can"

From the website of the Ministry of Commerce, a few days ago, the EU completely banned the import of textile products containing environmental hormones. This is the EU's introduction of new laws and regulations to impose more stringent requirements on textile labels. At the same time, the number of EU textile recalls against China has soared. "Under the global economic downturn, the EU has strengthened the protection of textile and apparel companies, especially children's wear, in the region, which will directly affect Shaoxing's textile and apparel exports to the EU market," said the person in charge of the county's Ministry of Commerce.

EU textiles to China

The number of recalls soared

Recently, a statistic of the China Textile Industry Federation has attracted the attention of many textile and clothing companies in Shaoxing. The EU REPEX system issued a total of 317 product notifications to China, an increase of 112.75% over the same period of the previous year, including 70 textile and apparel product notifications, which represented an increase of 337.5% year-on-year, a rapid increase.

“The EU’s soaring recall of China’s textile and apparel products, together with the new regulations recently introduced, imposes more stringent requirements on textile labels and other aspects, which will directly affect the export of textile enterprises in Shaoxing.” The EU has always been an important textile export market in our county, and it is also a key high-end market for our county. In 2011, the county exported 1,603 textile enterprises to Europe, and exported 1.15 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 11.9% of the county's total exports. Since the beginning of this year, affected by the European debt crisis, from January to September, the export to the EU was 870 million yuan, which was lower than last year.

Export to EU textile companies

Actively respond to

The EU will completely ban the import of textile products containing environmental hormones. This has caused Shaoxing's textile enterprises to face another "hurdle."

It is understood that the issue of environmental hormones in textiles and clothing has been of concern to all countries in the world. The EU explicitly prohibits the use of nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPE) and nonylphenol (NP) in the textile production industry. The Swedish Chemicals Agency submitted a document to the European Chemicals Agency that banned the import of NPE-containing textiles into the EU before August this year, which ultimately led to the European Union’s complete ban on the sale of textiles containing NPE in the market.

It is reported that NPE is an endocrine disruptor and carcinogen. As a surfactant, NPE is widely used in the textile industry. In addition, NPE can also be used as a cleaning agent. Once NPE enters the environment, it will quickly decompose into more toxic environmental hormones.

In the current situation of weak international market demand, our county textile enterprises should not give up the EU market because of encountering this “hurdle”, and must try to actively respond. The County Bureau of Commerce recommends that relevant companies pay close attention to the changes and implementation time of new EU requirements, make preparations in advance, strengthen control over the source of raw materials, adopt cleaner production technologies, replace NPE with eco-friendly surfactants, and abandon water washing. The way of textiles. “We will also track this incident and deliver relevant information in a timely manner to reduce the adverse impact of EU policy adjustments,” said the person in charge of the county bureau of commerce.