The global epidemic hit "Golden Three Silver Four", and the reporter visited the "International Textile Capital" ——

See how Keqiao foreign trade companies can overcome the difficulties

的 The latest data released by the World Health Organization on March 22 shows that there are more than 290,000 confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia worldwide, and more than 210,000 confirmed cases outside China.

Under the epidemic, Keqiao District of Shaoxing, the "International Textile Capital", is also experiencing a "shock-style" crisis.

Last year, Keqiao District's foreign trade exports increased by 15.6%, 10.6 percentage points higher than the country's. Many traders and entrepreneurs have predicted that Keqiao will still usher in a "big year" of exports this year. However, a new crown pneumonia epidemic hit the textile season of "Golden Three Silver Four". Just after the resumption of work and resumption of production, a large-scale outbreak of foreign epidemics has resulted in the cancellation of global exhibitions, decline in overseas demand, and reduction in the number of orders. The foreign trade export of Keqiao District in the first two months was $ 1.518 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 20.63%.

近 How is the current situation of Keqiao in the Foreign Trade Region? The reporter recently made an investigation and visited the "International Textile Capital" where the pause button was pressed twice during the epidemic.

Order crisis followed

橋 In mid-March Keqiao, the resumption of production and production is booming: In order to recover the time delayed by the domestic epidemic, foreign trade companies are busy outperforming jet lag to match customers, and many circular machine factories and printing and dyeing factories rush orders day and night.

外貿(mào) A foreign trader joked that textile fabrics that have always been transported by sea now enjoy air freight treatment. Feng Jijiang, the person in charge of Shaoxing Yiwei Textile Co., Ltd. just finished sending a single shipment, and the air freight rate rose from 12.5 yuan per kilogram two weeks ago to 22 yuan. "Originally this was a cargo that was shipped by sea at the end of February. You can only send it by air to catch the delivery. The freight is almost up to the price of the cloth."

Feng Jijiang's situation is almost a projection of the current Keqiao foreign trade enterprise. Since March, everyone has been making orders before the year regardless of cost, one is to maintain customer relationships, and the other is to catch the fashion season, in case the order is cancelled and the goods are reduced to inventory. This is the peculiarity of the textile industry, which closely follows fashion and has distinct seasons.

What was unexpected was that the domestic epidemic situation was about to pass, the global epidemic emerged suddenly, and most of the countries and regions where Keqiao textiles were exported were also affected.

"When we went to investigate at the end of February, many companies had a lot of foreign trade orders. But once the global epidemic broke out, they couldn't sit still." In the face of the rapidly changing global epidemic, these days, Tan Ke, director of the Keqiao District Commerce Bureau is Re-investigate and modify the research report. "It didn't take long for the forecast analysis at the beginning of the month to be applicable." He told reporters that with the continuous cancellation of orders and outages of new orders in the severely affected areas, the foreign trade situation in the next few months is not optimistic.

柯 For Keqiao, the domestic epidemic affected the unblocking of the supply side, and the loss was still predictable. The global epidemic directly affected the demand side, leading to a sudden decline in orders. The excitement to open the supply chain was then lost.

When the reporter saw Luo Haiming, chairman of Shaoxing Kaiming Textile Co., Ltd., he had just finished the meeting for the employees: before receiving the order, he must repeatedly inform the customer of possible risks. From now on, he can no longer accept uncertain orders.

Luo Haiming's caution is not without reason. Kaiming Textile exported about 1.2 billion yuan last year. According to the current situation, it is estimated that exports will be reduced by at least 300 million yuan this year. Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom accounted for about 50% of the company's export market. Since March 10, a large number of orders have been canceled, and orders have been cancelled. This has greatly affected the company's cash flow. Luo Haiming said: "Customers are generally afraid to place large orders. For us, receiving small orders means higher costs, but this is a helpless choice to control risks and maintain customer relationships."

For this foreign trade area, the impact of the epidemic abroad seems to be even greater than the domestic epidemic situation. Last year, there were more than 4,500 foreign buyers resident in Keqiao. At present, only more than 1,000 people have returned. Many foreign-owned commercial buildings have not heard from them for a long time; international exhibitions have been postponed or cancelled; It is unknown as scheduled. For foreign trade companies, the chances of getting new orders are greatly reduced.

The most anxious is uncertainty

In the past two weeks, Luo Haiming has to do two things every morning: open the mobile phone to watch the latest development of the global epidemic; take turns to ask customers in each time zone for the epidemic situation in their country. Seeing the rising number of diagnoses, the markets that he thought were "sustainable" also fell.

"Two weeks ago, a Bangladeshi customer was eager to add an order for 200,000 meters of fabric to us, but today he asked if he could cancel it." This change made Luo Haiming realize that there is a story behind the crisis: Despite the current epidemic situation in Bangladesh and Not serious, but the local garment processing factory that imports Keqiao textile fabrics is finally exported to European and American countries that are in the worst-hit areas.

It can be seen that the crisis is not limited to the reduction and cancellation of immediate orders. As the new crown pneumonia epidemic spreads in many countries, it may eventually bring many risks such as market shrinkage, cash flow depletion, and exchange rate fluctuations. The anxiety caused by these uncertainties is also passed between foreign traders and entrepreneurs.

These hidden risks are even more anxious. For the textile industry, Italy has a greater impact on being a hardest hit area. Some experts have pointed out that Italy is the textile center of Europe, the largest export market for Keqiao to the European Union, and also an important springboard for textiles to enter Europe. Many of Keqiao's fabrics are not only exported directly to Italy, but also purchased through other countries. They go to Italy for apparel design and processing, and then sell them all over the world.

Industry insiders pointed out that most of the textile fabrics purchased in Eastern and Southern European countries will eventually go to Italy, and the orders for Mexico, South America and other countries will eventually be in the United States. "The epidemic situation in these countries is changing every day, and we don't know how to take orders." Many foreign trade people lamented that the products could not be delivered smoothly due to the impact of the epidemic, and Keqiao export enterprises will bear a lot of losses.

In addition to the epidemic itself, the recent plunge in crude oil prices has also exacerbated uncertainty in the foreign trade industry. "It not only affects the prices of upstream chemical fiber products, but also causes exchange rate fluctuations in various countries. The most feared foreign trade is the instability of the exchange rate." Zhang Jianfeng, principal of Keqiao Silka Trading Co., said that the company focuses on emerging markets such as South America and the Middle East. Constantly being cancelled, almost 20% of the cancelled orders.

He is more worried that if the epidemic escalates, emerging market currencies may depreciate sharply, which in turn will reduce the profits of companies settled in US dollars and increase the risk of international trade compliance and settlement. For businesses, this is greater uncertainty.

Such worries, Shaoxing Baofang Printing and Dyeing Company general manager Yu Shaobo also had. Commodities plummeted in 2015, and the price of U.S. crude oil fell below 27 US dollars per barrel, which caused the rapid depreciation of the Nigerian currency of the major oil exporter. In addition to the trauma of the previous Ebola epidemic, the purchasing power of the local market was almost zero. At that time, Baofang Printing and Dyeing nearly 70 % Of the market is in Nigeria. At the time of the crisis, the company decisively gave up its original products, spotted the low-price demand in the African market, redeveloped cost-effective products, and entered the multi-market. With that lesson, Baofang has always maintained a low debt ratio and stabilized the "basic disk", taking diversified markets as its foundation, and cultivating more than 30 African countries to diversify risks. "Companies need to prepare for the exchange rate risks caused by the oil plunge." Yu Shaobo said.

Control long-term risk layout

下 Under the global epidemic of new crown pneumonia, Keqiao's foreign trade export enterprises embarked on the anti-risk track. Experienced foreign trade people understand that at this moment, they ca n’t just distress the order “flying”, and it is more important to ensure a safe landing after the epidemic.

想 If you want to be stable in this round of epidemic shock wave, you must first fasten the "safety belt" of risk control. Xuan Liya, the general manager of Keqiao Chenchen Import and Export Company, calculated for the reporter: the rent and labor cost of the office building is 40,000 yuan a day, which means that two small cabinet orders must be received each day. Offset, "There are still orders every day, but most of them are small orders of 30,000 to 50,000 meters, and the cost must be controlled before they can be picked up." Her desk was full of books, reports, and various data that recorded the status of each order and customer. Can blurt out.

Under the law of market competition, profits are always accompanied by risks, but for Keqiao foreign trade enterprises, controlling risks is more important than profit. On the one hand is the risk control of revenue. Every time the customer comes to the order, you must carefully calculate whether to accept it. Do not ask for large orders. Small questions are asked before the organization of production. Will the risk control of corporate costs, debt ratio, cash flow And raw material prices. In order to get through this difficulty, more enterprises have accelerated the steps of reducing leverage and realizing cash flow: some choose to pay off some loans, and some find a number of banks to negotiate for more favorable loan interest rates.

的 The immediate loss is unavoidable, and many entrepreneurs look at the long-term and begin to lay out competition in the "post-epidemic era". Since the resumption of work, Luo Haiming has gone to the market every weekend to see the fabrics. One month later, his office was full of high-end autumn and winter fabrics carefully selected from the market. "These are the hottest styles this year. We must hurry up the design research and send samples to customers." Luo Haiming marked his "trophy" with different star ratings and corresponding markets, and made a brand new sample book. This is his "unique secret" to deal with the crisis. In recent years, he has been actively selecting customers, and quality customers have become the confidence to survive the crisis.

"Whoever can survive for a long time is the winner. At this juncture, the government, banks, and enterprises need to work together to respond to the worst possibility with the most positive action." In Keqiao, in addition to large-scale production-oriented foreign trade companies, there are 70% Above the circulation-type foreign trade enterprises, thousands of small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises are distributed in the major textile city markets. Many SME owners said that when new business income was nearing suspension, they faced many difficulties such as funding constraints and cost pressures. They looked forward to the government's help to relieve the pressure and continue to introduce policies to reduce costs. They also expected banks to increase their efforts to provide financing support for enterprises.

解決 In order to solve the new pain points of the enterprise, these days, Tan Ke is too busy to start business, logistics can be opened if there is a shortage of staff, and there can be insufficient staff to pick up. However, if the needs come up with problems, innovative thinking is needed. The international exhibition has stopped. Can I change the exhibition? On March 20, with the help of the two platforms of Global Textile Network and Online Textile City, 2020 Global Textile Cloud Exhibition Exhibitor Recruitment officially opened, attracting more than 40 companies to go online in one day. Exhibitors and merchants can interact two-way through live broadcast, and the anchor will show the products to the merchants, and the merchants will let the enterprises receive feedback in time through the barrage chat method, which is convenient for the development of better-selling products.

提升 In order to improve the feasibility of the cloud exhibition, a few days ago, Tan Ke also went to a Shanghai testing agency to investigate. "Fabric is a special product, and customers must have an intuitive experience before they dare to place a large order. We want to see if we can cooperate with the testing agency, what products the customer is optimistic about online, and the detailed reports such as the excellent fastness of the third-party testing agency to help customers be bold. Place an order. "

The more He encounters difficulties, the more he has to show his magic. In response to the plight of foreign trade companies, Keqiao has introduced a series of new policies: the scope of subsidies for participating companies has been extended from key exhibitions to all overseas exhibitions, and companies are encouraged to actively make breakthroughs in markets with less affected regions; Remove worries about companies placing orders during high-risk periods; vigorously promote the development of cross-border e-commerce, encourage companies to create overseas trademarks, increase online sales and online exhibitions to expand the market; accelerate the implementation of foreign trade enterprise policies, and resolve cash flows encountered by enterprises problem.

Deterministic response is uncertain, which is the basis for government and business response. Certainty lies in the numerous foreign trade entities that are sensitive to market information and effective in responding to crises, but also the industry strength that has been cultivated for many years. Keqiao, an "international textile capital", was formed in the international competition. There is a strong industrial chain with relatively complete supporting facilities and complete products. For example, Feng Jijiang said: Indian customers place an order for 300,000 meters of fabrics. Keqiao can complete the entire process from raw material procurement to printing and dyeing in 15 days, shipping to Hong Kong in 30 days, and placing orders in India at the same time. But it takes 50 to 60 days. "The price is low and the speed is fast. Keqiao has the world's best cargo organizer and a 'trained' industrial chain." Feng Jijiang said.

Every game and every competition means the beginning of a new journey.