An employee works at an intelligent textile plant in Nantong, Jiangsu province, on May 15. [Photo/VCG]

Nantong is working to boost the innovative development of its textile industry to ensure that the output value of the high-end textile sector exceeds 300 billion yuan ($43.47 billion) by 2025. This was announced at the 2020 China Nantong High-end Textile Industry Expo, which ran from July 3 to 5 in the coastal city in East China's Jiangsu province.

Thanks to its geographical advantages, Nantong has been a major cotton production area since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was famous for its hand-made cotton cloth during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

In the late 19th century, Zhang Jian, a renowned modern industrialist and top scholar, set up China's first large-scale cotton spinning business – the Dasheng Yarn Factory in Nantong, and later formed an industrial cluster there centered on textiles, laying a solid foundation for the textile industry in China.

Over 100 years later, Nantong has become one of the top three home textile centers in the world, with the others being Frankfurt in Germany and Fifth Avenue in New York, the United States.

Its textile products are sold to more than 150 countries and regions, with online and offline revenue exceeding 220 billion yuan in 2019.

An integrated industrial chain has been formed in the city, consisting of six sectors – home textiles, cotton textiles, clothing, chemical fiber, silk, and printing and dyeing.

The city is currently home to more than 1,000 high-end textile companies with annual revenue of over 20 million yuan, and 18 of China's top 500 textile and clothing companies.

To promote innovative industrial development, Dasheng Group, which grew out of the Dasheng Yarn Factory, has led the country in the development of a whole-process domestic digital spinning line.

In the second half of this year, the group plans to spend 500 million yuan developing China's first intelligent spinning plant using 5G, internet of things, and other advanced technology.

Meanwhile, Luolai Group has invested 150 million yuan in setting up an innovative center in Nantong focusing on the research and development of high-tech textile products such as sleep-aid pillows.

The local government is also endeavoring to attract high-end textile projects involving design, materials, equipment, finished products, and sales in an effort to develop the city into a world-class textile hub.