When curtain fabric annual output value approaches 70 billion yuan and cross-border online trade reaches 800-900 million USD, this traditional industry stands at a subtle watershed: scale remains impressive, but the growth logic has changed. The 2026 China Home Textile Association Fabric Branch Annual Meeting held in Keqiao on August 12 turned the industry's 15th Five-Year Plan opening year from slogans into reality—value growth is not an option but a survival issue.
Industry Fundamentals: Scale and Hidden Worries
Look at Keqiao as an industrial sample. Data provided by Sun Weigang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee of China Textile City, outlines an 'economic powerhouse supported by a piece of cloth': in 2025, the textile city's turnover exceeded 440 billion yuan, with nearly 8,000 curtain fabric enterprises and annual output value nearing 70 billion yuan, cross-border online trade reaching 800-900 million USD. These figures show Keqiao's scale advantage remains obvious as one of the world's largest curtain fabric clusters. But the flip side is that Zhu Xiaohong, President of China Home Textile Association, reviewing the 14th Five-Year Plan, frankly stated that the industry suffered from real estate downturn and raw material price hikes, with enterprise profits under pressure in H1 and exports showing 'volume growth with price decline'. This means the old model of low-price volume expansion has reached its limit, and the marginal benefits of scale expansion are diminishing.
Liang Pengcheng, Vice President of China National Textile and Apparel Council, also pointed out the current situation: production, sales, and exports grew steadily in H1, but weak demand and trade fluctuations remain. The structural problem behind this 'steady growth' is exactly what the industry should watch—if growth relies solely on quantity accumulation while prices and profits continue to decline, then larger scale means higher risk. For buyers and factories, this data sends a clear signal: future competition is no longer about who has more capacity, but who can create more added value.
Breakthrough Paths: Design, Technology, AI, and Going Global
The annual meeting theme 'Design Breakthrough, Science Innovation Empowerment, All-domain Symbiosis' is not empty slogans but corresponds to four specific breakthrough paths. On original design, Lin Shaowu, brand consultant of Tianyu New Materials, targeted the price involution and homogenization dilemma, proposing to return to users' real home scenarios, focusing on 300 million people with sleep disorders, separate bedding, and work-from-home needs, combining temperature control and antibacterial functions with healing colors and layered textures, and building a product matrix of image, profit, and traffic products to establish brand recognition and pricing power. For SMEs, the implication is that design is not art but product strategy—a weapon to escape low-price competition.
On technology, Ji Feng, Associate Professor at Donghua University's College of Textiles, showcased transformation from lab to production line: building a massive dye database, using AI for intelligent precise color matching to solve digital printing color difference issues; establishing fiber polarized light image library, using CNN deep learning for non-destructive rapid fabric composition identification, replacing traditional chemical testing. These technologies mean home textile enterprises can improve product quality and testing efficiency without significantly increasing hardware costs—a practical path for small and medium factories to reduce hidden costs and enhance competitiveness.
AI application was a highlight. Zhao Lu, Global VP of Collov AI, proposed that spatial AI is key to efficiency improvement in the fabric industry. Through world models, spatial analysis, material replacement, and one-click realistic generation can save hundreds of thousands in offline sampling and photo shooting costs; commercial soft furnishing is prioritized as the first landing track, and AI standardized solutions can greatly improve bidding competitiveness. He also predicted that embodied intelligence will only be scale-applied in warehousing, sorting, and inspection processes in the next three years. This means AI is not mysticism but a quantifiable cost-reduction tool—for factories, reducing sampling and photo costs directly affects pricing competitiveness; for foreign trade companies, AI-generated scene materials can accelerate customer decision cycles.
On going global, Zhang Xiaocun, partner of Modern Media's home textile business, used TikTok data to analyze practical paths: platform covers over 150 countries with 2 billion monthly active users, and Southeast Asia and Latin America home furnishing categories grow fastest globally. He shared explosive tactics like immersive short videos, local influencers, and Keqiao industrial belt origin live streaming, and suggested building a three-layer product matrix of basic, functional, and co-branded products. For SMEs lacking export experience, this provides a replicable low-cost trial plan—not necessarily full-channel expansion at once, but leveraging platform traffic dividends to start with single products.
Industry Impact: From 'Going It Alone' to 'Ecosystem Synergy'
Another important signal from the annual meeting is that the industry is moving from fragmented competition to ecosystem synergy. Among Zhu Xiaohong's six development goals—improving global diversified supply chains, deeply tapping domestic soft furnishing renewal demand, activating new quality productivity through AI and industry-university-research integration, building Chinese home textile aesthetic independent brands, implementing full-chain carbon footprint standards, and deploying healthy sleep laboratories—each points to systematic restructuring. The association's subsequent release of industry implementation plans and regular industrial exchange activities mean these directions will transform from meeting consensus into concrete actions.
For Keqiao, this annual meeting further consolidated its core position as a curtain fabric cluster. The agglomeration of nearly 8,000 enterprises, coupled with active cross-border e-commerce, makes Keqiao not only a production base but also a convergence point for design, technology, and channels. This agglomeration effect means richer product selection and shorter supply chain response for buyers; for factories, it means easier access to cutting-edge industry information and cooperation opportunities.
Practical Suggestions
For Buyers - Focus on AI sampling and virtual scene services; prioritize suppliers offering rapid visualization solutions to significantly shorten selection and decision cycles. - Incorporate 'healthy sleep' functions (such as temperature control, antibacterial) into procurement standards rather than price alone, as consumers are willing to pay premium for functional value. - Leverage Keqiao cluster advantages through origin live streaming or on-site factory inspections to directly connect with source factories and reduce intermediary costs.
For Foreign Trade Enterprises - Pay attention to traffic dividends on short-video platforms like TikTok, especially in Southeast Asia and Latin America; use immersive short videos and local influencer collaborations to test new products at low cost. - Establish a three-layer product matrix of basic, functional, and co-branded products to avoid single price wars and enter overseas niche markets with differentiated products. - Focus on AI-generated multilingual materials and virtual showroom tools to significantly reduce communication costs with overseas customers and improve inquiry conversion rates.
The home textile fabric industry's 15th Five-Year Plan path is not a smooth road, but the Keqiao annual meeting provided a clear navigation map: define value with design, enhance efficiency with technology, restructure costs with AI, and open increments by going global. For all practitioners, the task now is to turn these paths into their own operational actions—because new quality productivity is never waited for, but achieved through action.