One out of every five sweaters worldwide comes from Dalang Town, Dongguan, China. The town's entire industrial chain has an annual transaction volume exceeding 72 billion CNY and produces over 900 million garments per year. These figures underscore China's irreplaceable anchor role in the global wool supply chain.
Industry Coordinates: The Dalang Sample and Global Resilience
When the 95th International Wool Textile Conference opened in Dalang on June 24, the event itself signaled a shift in global attention. Public data from the China National Textile and Apparel Council shows that China processes over 60 million tons of fiber annually, produces more than 70 billion garments, and accounts for over 50% of global output in both categories. Exports have exceeded 300 billion USD for six consecutive years, with strong shipments of intermediate goods like chemical fibers and fabrics providing stable support for global supply chains.
Dalang's clustering is not an isolated phenomenon. It represents a typical path for China's textile industry to transition from 'scale advantage' to 'system advantage.' When a township-level cluster can support one-fifth of global sweater production, its underlying manufacturing system, logistics network, talent pool, and digital infrastructure form a closed-loop ecosystem that is difficult to replicate.
Paradigm Shift: The Dual Impact of Intelligent and Experience Economies
The conference theme, 'Smart Weaving the Future: Wool's Health and Digital Life,' captures the two most critical variables currently facing the industry.
The penetration of the intelligent economy is accelerating faster than expected. Industry public data shows the global AI market reached 757.58 billion USD in 2025, up 18.7% year-on-year. In China, daily token calls exceeded 140 trillion as of March 2025, a 40% increase from the end of the previous year. What do these numbers mean for the wool industry?
- Production side: AI is rewriting cost structures. Jiangsu Yueda Textile's 'Lighthouse Factory' reduced labor per 10,000 spindles by about 70%, increased total labor productivity by more than four times, cut energy consumption by 15%, and lowered processing costs by 26%. Semir's AI-assisted design system improved overall design efficiency by 35% and pattern design efficiency by over 200%. Bosideng's 'AI Aesthetic Brain' reduced sample development costs by more than 60%.
- Model side: One-person companies and the 'hand-crafted economy' are rising. In the first half of 2025 alone, new OPC registrations in China increased by 47% year-on-year. This means small-batch, multi-variety, fast-response wool orders will become the norm, posing a direct challenge to traditional mass production models.
Meanwhile, the experience economy is reshaping consumer logic. Demand for wool products is no longer limited to warmth; it now extends to health, emotional connection, and self-expression. Social media accelerates information generation and dissemination, making product discovery, comparison, and decision-making increasingly intelligent. This means wool enterprises must shift from 'selling fabric' to 'selling experiences,' from a production-oriented to a user-oriented approach.
Structural Contradictions Behind the Data
From January to April 2025, revenue of China's textile enterprises above designated size fell 0.3% year-on-year, but total profit rose 19.3%, with a profit margin of 2.9%. This set of data reveals a key fact: the industry is undergoing a structural adjustment of 'volume decline, profit increase.' Profit growth comes mainly from efficiency gains and higher product added value, not scale expansion.
Investment data further confirms this divergence. From January to May, fixed asset investment in the textile industry grew 10.8% year-on-year, while investment in the garment and chemical fiber industries fell 10.3% and 14.5%, respectively. This indicates that capital is concentrating on the manufacturing and technology ends, while downstream garment and upstream chemical fiber sectors face more severe capacity reduction pressure.
The export side also shows divergence: textile exports grew 1.7% year-on-year, while garment exports fell 1.6%. The resilience of intermediate goods exports far exceeds that of final consumer goods, reflecting a global supply chain trend of 'disintermediation'—brands prefer to directly purchase semi-finished products like fabrics and yarns, completing final processing near consumption points.