Dalan Town produces 900 million sweaters a year, meaning one out of every five sweaters globally originates here. When a knitwear cluster of this scale shares the stage with millennia-old textile intangible cultural heritage, the signal goes far beyond a mere exhibition. On June 24, the 10th Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Conference, the 23rd China (Dalan) Knitwear Fair, and the 95th International Wool Conference kicked off simultaneously in Dongguan Dalan. The triple-event format reveals a clear path from manufacturing to cultural branding.
Heritage Standardization: From Craft Preservation to Market Passport
The most noteworthy breakthrough of this conference is the signing of the "Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Standards and Certification Cooperation." In the past, textile heritage mostly remained at the level of skills preservation and display, lacking quantifiable industry standards. This collaboration between the CNTAC Intangible Heritage Office and Zhonglian Pinjian Dongguan Company means heritage products will now have an authoritative certification system. For buyers, standardized heritage labels offer more reliable quality assurance and traceability; for factories, it provides a compliance threshold for transitioning from OEM to value-added cultural products.
At the same time, the "Strategic Cooperation on Textile Heritage and Knitwear Product Innovation" was signed, involving industry associations, town government, local enterprises, designers, and heritage inheritors. The local Dalan intangible heritage motif—the Qilin pattern—was extracted as a core design symbol and used in the fashion show of leading companies like Yixiang Grassland, Tongfa, Xinhongfeng, and Lanmei. This "heritage IP + industrial manufacturing" collaboration model is turning traditional patterns into reproducible commercial assets.
Upgrade Pressure Behind the Data
Dalan's GDP stands at 47.37 billion yuan, with the knitwear industry as its absolute pillar. But behind the 900 million sweaters lies a long-standing OEM-based industrial base. Slowing global sweater demand, rising labor costs, and increasing trade barriers are all pushing this cluster to find a second growth curve. The triple event—the fair building global trade bridges, the heritage conference injecting cultural content, and the international wool conference bringing cutting-edge perspectives—provides tools for the industry to shift from "produce-to-order" to independent design and cultural export.
Notably, Dongguan CPPCC Vice Chairman Qu Hongqi explicitly listed textile and apparel as a key pillar of the city's "8+8+4" modern industrial system. This indicates that Dalan's upgrade is not an isolated move but embedded in Dongguan's municipal industrial planning.
Contract Matrix: Covering Five Key Chains
Beyond heritage standards and product innovation, on-site signings also covered quality service system co-building, brand supply-demand service cooperation, and investment attraction agreements. Specifically:
- Quality service system co-building: Signed between Dalan Knitwear and inspection agencies to enhance product quality control and export compliance.
- Brand supply-demand service cooperation: Connects brand side with manufacturing side to reduce intermediaries.
- Dongguan Smart Manufacturing Center and Jiangyin Hengxiang Weaving investment attraction: Brings in external high-quality weaving enterprises to strengthen Dalan's supply chain.
These five types of contracts build a closed-loop upgrade framework from standards, design, quality, brand, and capacity.