The Middle Kingdom, as China is sometimes known, is coming into ever sharper focus as a production site for high-technology products. An undergraduate dissertation, “Analysis of industry structure, taking technical textiles in the Chinese textile market as an example“, tackles the question of whether China is an interesting source market for technical textiles, from the point of view of a German business. At the forefront of this is the extent of backward integration.

Taken as a whole, the risks must not be underestimated. The danger of passing up an association with an attractive source market is significantly higher than the risks that it poses. The margins available, which are still high, should be used to build a Chinese supplier into a purchasing source: this is where the pioneering advantages lie, since it seems inevitable that China will be producing ever greater volumes of technical textiles in the near future.

Read the complete article in our printed issue textile network 7-8/2017 – publish date 30th June 2017. For a free copy please click HERE