While curtain and fabric companies are anxious about price wars, data from Keqiao reveals another side: in 2025, the China Textile City's transaction volume exceeded 440 billion yuan, with nearly 8,000 curtain and fabric enterprises and annual output value close to 70 billion yuan, plus cross-border online transactions of 800-900 million US dollars. These figures underscore the urgent need for the home textile fabric industry to shift from scale expansion to value growth. On August 12, the 2026 China Home Textile Association Fabric Branch annual meeting convened in Keqiao, Shaoxing, outlining a path forward.
Current Industry Status: Pressures and Potential
In the first half of the year, production, sales, and exports saw modest growth, but weak demand and trade fluctuations persist. The fabric sector has been hit by property market downturn and rising raw material costs, squeezing corporate profits, with exports showing volume growth but price decline. This means the low-price, high-volume model is no longer sustainable; companies must find new value anchors.
Notably, home textiles are close to consumer livelihoods and hold great potential. Keqiao, an "economic powerhouse on a piece of cloth," boasts a complete textile chain, and its curtain cluster's vitality is a microcosm of industry transformation. Sun Weigang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee of China Textile City, highlighted Keqiao's strengths with data. Zhu Xiaohong, President of the China Home Textile Association, reviewed the achievements of the 14th Five-Year Plan and proposed six goals for the 15th, including improving global supply chains, tapping domestic demand, AI empowerment, building independent brands, implementing carbon footprint standards, and establishing healthy sleep labs. These goals directly address industry pain points and signal where policy resources will flow.
Breakthrough Paths: Design, Technology, and AI
Facing homogenization, Lin Shaowu, brand consultant at Tianyu New Materials, proposed returning to real home scenarios, focusing on the 300 million sleep-disordered people and separate-bed sleeping needs, combining temperature control and antibacterial functions with healing colors, and building a product matrix of image, profit, and traffic items. This is not just a product strategy but a way to build brand pricing power—when design becomes a core asset, price wars lose meaning.
Associate Professor Ji Feng from Donghua University showcased digital and intelligent technologies: AI-based color matching to solve digital printing color differences, and CNN deep learning for non-destructive fiber identification, replacing traditional chemical tests. These technologies mean significantly lower testing costs and time, crucial for SMEs' product upgrades.
AI's application in home textiles extends beyond testing. Zhao Lu, Global VP of Collov AI, pointed out that spatial AI is key to improving fabric industry efficiency. Through world models, it enables space parsing, material replacement, and one-click realistic rendering, saving high costs of offline sampling and photography. He predicts that embodied intelligence will only be scalable in warehousing, sorting, and inspection within three years, providing a rational expectation for technology investment. Fabric physical data is seen as a long-term core asset; companies that adopt spatial AI early will reshape the competitive landscape.
New Export Channels and Industry Collaboration
Globalization is no longer exclusive to large enterprises; growth channels for SMEs are opening. Zhang Xiaocun from Modern Media shared TikTok data: covering 150+ countries with 2 billion monthly active users, with Southeast Asia and Latin America leading in home furnishing category growth. This means curtain and fabric companies can leverage short videos and local influencers, using Keqiao industrial belt traceability live streams to reach overseas consumers directly. The three-tier product matrix (basic, functional, co-branded) offers a replicable operational model for factories and brands.
The annual meeting also signaled normalized industry collaboration. The China Home Textile Association will link with Keqiao to hold themed exchange meetings and supply chain events, promoting original design, tech transfer, and dual circulation. For Keqiao, this is not only an upgrade opportunity but also a strategic move to consolidate its global curtain center status.