PROFILE - CHINA'S TEXTILE INDUSTRY (JAN 2004).

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A PROFILE OF CHINA'S TEXTILE INDUSTRY

PREPARED BY ASIA PULSE ANALYSTS (JAN 2004)

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OVERVIEW

* China's textile industry operated healthily in the first ten months of 2003, with total output value (current price) registering a 21.76 per cent year-on-year growth to 1028.4 billion yuan (US$120 billion), output value of products sold reaching 999.1 billion yuan, the sales/output ratio being 0.22 percentage higher than in the first three quarters to reach 96.78 per cent, sales revenue reaching 970.1 billion yuan, total profit reaching 32.7 billion yuan and profitability growing 0.06 percentage points to reach 3.37 per cent.

* The number of large textile enterprises (with an annual sales volume of more than 5 million yuan) was 25,540 by the end of October 2003, 10.54 per cent more than in the same period of last year. Of the total, 5,544 or 21.71 per cent suffered from deficit, 1.09 percentage points less than in the previous three quarters, according to the Statistics Center of the China Association of Textile Industry.