In 2025, Zhejiang Province's textile and garment enterprises above designated size achieved revenue of 1.12 trillion yuan, accounting for a quarter of the national total; textile exports reached 95.331 billion U.S. dollars, also ranking first nationwide. This data was disclosed at the 2026 Garment Industry Science and Technology Innovation Conference held on July 28 in Hangzhou Linping, reflecting the sustained impact of Zhejiang's gradient cultivation system of 'lightweight digital transformation—digital workshops—smart factories—future factories'.
Event Background: Scale Effects of Linping Industrial Cluster
Linping, as the core area of Hangzhou's garment industry, produces 80% of Hangzhou-style women's wear. The district has built Yishang Town, a provincial-level characteristic town, gathering over 6,200 industrial chain enterprises and more than 100 brand headquarters, with output value exceeding 20 billion yuan. At the conference, Linping authorities clearly stated they would target a thousand-billion-level fashion industry cluster, expanding the main women's wear business through a '1+4+N' investment mechanism and diversifying into multiple categories with a million-square-meter industrial carrier. This signals Linping's accelerated transformation from a regional manufacturing base to a national fashion hub.
Sun Ruizhe, President of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, systematically elaborated on the four high-quality development dimensions of 'technology, fashion, green, and health' for the textile and garment industry, emphasizing that the sector is at a critical window of structural upgrading, kinetic energy conversion, and value leap. He proposed four expectations: strengthening technological innovation, deepening digital-intelligent integration, perfecting the innovation ecosystem, and coordinating development and security, providing a clear roadmap for industrial transformation.
Industry Impact: Nine Pathways and AI Agent Implementation
Chen Dapeng, President of the China Garment Association, clarified the two-step goal for the garment industry during the '15th Five-Year Plan' period: achieving a brand power nation by 2035 and building a fashion power by mid-century. He proposed nine core scientific and technological innovation pathways, covering 28 specific tasks including AI and data intelligence, intelligent R&D innovation, smart manufacturing equipment iteration, smart factory leap, supply chain reconstruction, green transformation, smart wearable technology, function-fashion integration, and intelligent marketing upgrade. This system means the industry will shift from single-point technology applications to systematic innovation of full-chain digitalization, full-scenario functionalization, and full-dimension greening.
Li Xia, Chief Architect of the Manufacturing Digital Transformation Promotion Center, pointed out that 2026 is the first year of large-scale application of AI agents, and the garment industry is facing three paradigm reconstructions in design, production, and marketing. However, data silos and inconsistent standards remain core bottlenecks. She revealed that the national textile and garment digital promotion center has opened free digital diagnostic services, using digital tools to help enterprises achieve flexible manufacturing and full-domain collaboration. This lowers the threshold for small and medium-sized factories to undergo digital transformation.
Wang Dong, Vice President of Wuhan Textile University, approached from the material side, arguing that consumer demand for three comfort dimensions—heat and moisture, touch, and pressure—has fully exploded. Photosensitive, thermosensitive, and force-sensitive color-changing fibers, along with smart sensing fabrics, are pushing traditional fabrics to leap towards multifunctional, perceptible, and adaptive smart materials. This means fabric buyers need to pay attention to the supply chain layout of functional fibers to meet downstream brands' demand for differentiated products.