Standards And Quality Of Textiles And Clothing

In June 28, 2011, the China Textile Industry Association issued the Circular No. [2011]115, "the notice on postponing the implementation of GB18401-2010" national standard for the basic safety technical specifications of national textiles products ". It pmitted the reply of the National Standardization Management Committee on the national standard for postponing the implementation of GB18401-2010" basic safety technical Specification for National Textiles "(the two letter of the National Standard Committee [2011]17), and informed the relevant units that the national standard of the basic safety technical specification for textile products of the state will be postponed to August 1, 2012.

Since August 1, 2012, textile products which do not conform to GB18401-2010's basic safety technical specification for national textile products are prohibited from production, sale and importation.

Standards and quality and domestic trade

Standard upgrade is the necessity of environmental protection.

The green environmental protection standard of textile and clothing is issued by the International Association for the study of ecology and testing. The new OEKO-TEXSTANDARD100 standard for International Green Textile Ecology includes three parts. The first part is that the production process of textile materials must conform to the standards of ecology.

For natural fiber, plant fiber, cotton and linen cultivation, fertilization, vegetation protection, use of growth auxiliaries, animal feeding, animal health, disease prevention and growth agents require that a large number of pesticides and fertilizers should be avoided to minimize or eliminate pesticide residues on fiber, so as to avoid ecological imbalance and soil fertility damage.

For chemical fibers, we should use no pollution in the production process (such as soybean protein fiber, modal fiber, Tence1 fiber, chitin fiber, etc.) and biodegradable fibers that do not pollute the environment.

The second part is the production, processing and packaging of textiles, which must comply with the ecological standards. They must not use prohibited dyes, and contain toxic finishing agents such as resins and formaldehyde. The dyeing and finishing technology without water or less water can effectively clean production or zero pollution production, avoid or reduce environmental pollution or harm to the human body, and ensure that the pH value of the final product reaches the best value.

The third part is the treatment of textiles after use should comply with environmental protection requirements, try to avoid or reduce.

This standard is the prevailing international standard for textile and clothing trade.

The certification of this standard is undoubtedly of great benefit for garment enterprises to enter the international market.

What is China's standard in the face of such a mature international textile and apparel standard?

Since the beginning of 1980s, China's garment industry has established its own national standard, and has been developing and perfecting its own standard system of garment industry.

At present, there are more than 80 national and industrial standards of clothing. The implementation of national standards has played a very important role in standardizing the clothing sales market and promoting the rapid development of China's garment industry.

Entering the twenty-first Century, our consumers' awareness of green environmental protection has been enhanced, and the environmental protection, comfort and safety of clothing have been further requested.

Especially in recent ten years, the clothing standards formulated and revised have added some important indexes such as formaldehyde and pH value.

The discussion on low carbon economy has become a hot topic in the society.

Recently, the General Administration of quality supervision, inspection and quarantine and the National Standardization Management Committee issued the sixth standard announcement in 2011, and approved 192 national standards. Among them, 8 related standards of textile and clothing, including knitted cotton clothing, knitted garment and anti electromagnetic radiation combed woolen fabrics, were first formulated.

There is no doubt that the environmental protection trend of textile and garment standards is becoming more and more obvious. In this regard, Xu Jian, Secretary General of the national garment Standardization Technical Committee, said: "clothing standards can guide the popularization and popularization of new technologies in the industry, and further improve the quality of products.

Before 2000, the standard of clothing was mainly concerned with the quality of sewing.

After 2000, the garment industry has been further improved, and environmental protection and safety have gradually become the focus of clothing standards.

In the future, clothing standards will pay more attention to the technical requirements of products in terms of environmental protection, safety, functionality and comfort, so as to make clothing more humane in product quality.

Sun Huaibin, director of the China Textile Economic Research Center, said: "the textile industry is currently a very important livelihood industry in China. This industry will continue to develop along with China's economic development, so sustainable development is an unavoidable problem.

Among the problems, our first concern is the coordination of resources, the second is environmental friendliness, and the third is social responsibility.

In these three fields, the textile industry has done a lot of work.

We are committed to the sustainable development of this industry. "

When the main textile and garment retail market starts to favor green products, Chinese textile and garment enterprises must also meet the corresponding requirements.

The trend of global sustainable development is obvious. China's environmental protection must be up to standard.

China's textile and garment enterprises must enter the "rigid standard" access stage from the environmental awareness stage in the past.

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Continuous quality problems

In April 10th of this year, a comparison test of 57 pairs of casual pants from the Beijing Consumers Association and the national clothing quality supervision and Inspection Center (Tianjin) put ZARA on the cusp. The fiber content and color fastness were not qualified, and this is the seventh time since August 2009 that ZARA has boarded the "black list" because of quality problems.

ZARA, a Spanish apparel giant INDITEX, has been popular with fashion young people since its entry into China. Its popularity has made it difficult for many fashion brands to follow suit.

In the test results, "injured" not only ZARA a big international brand, but also some well-known brands of consumers, such as MCM, Gallery false fiber content; from the G2000 samples, PH content exceeds the standard, will destroy the skin's balance and resistance; Marlboroclassics, G-STAR and other color fastness is not up to standard, has caused the dye to fall off, so as to pollute the consumers' skin and other clothing, causing trouble to consumers.

For this ZARA "quality gate", some Spanish media have also reported accordingly.

The newspaper said that these problems that ZARA began to encounter in the Chinese market may undermine the expansion plan of ZARA in China.

This is the latest news event that caused the most controversial news because of standards and quality.

In addition to the bubbling ZARA "quality gate", the most quality problem in clothing should be children's clothing. This is because the standard of children's products is more specific, detailed and higher than that of adult clothes. In addition, children's products are targeted at consumers who are most concerned about children. Therefore, every time children's clothing quality problems, it will cause great social concern.

Shanghai City Consumer Protection Committee recently released the circulation of children's products comparative test shows that the recent sampling of children, infant clothing and children's shoes pass rate is only 79% and 50%.

The conclusion of sampling inspection is that some enterprises fail to monitor the quality of products and have many defects in quality. The quality of some samples can not be directly proportional to their brand awareness or expensive prices.

Among them, "H&M" children's clothing is exposed to fiber content does not meet the national standards.

In this comparative sampling, there are nearly 40 production and distribution enterprises in 6 provinces and cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian and Guangdong, as well as more than 20 brands with high popularity or large sales volume.

After testing, children and infants clothing samples do not meet the standards, the main problems are: fiber content is not accurate, pH value, color fastness does not meet the standard requirements.

The Gansu Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau recently announced the results of special supervision and inspection of children's clothing products in some parts of the province, showing that the passing rate of physical quality was 79.3%, a slight improvement in the same ratio.

In the face of standards, imported brand clothing is not without worry about quality.

Recently, the Shanghai entry exit inspection and Quarantine Bureau concentrated on destroying the 79 batches of imported and exported high-end clothing that were seized this year in the city appearance and sanitation management center. The main producing areas of substandard products were South Korea, Italy, Portugal, Morocco, Spain, India, Turkey, Bangladesh and so on.

The unqualified imported garments including 9944 adult clothing and 99.94 kilograms of children's clothing were destroyed.

The main unqualified safety and health items are color fastness, pH value, azo dyes, formaldehyde and fiber components.

According to incomplete statistics, Shanghai port has imported more than 3 tons of garments annually, accounting for more than 40% of China's total imports.

As an important port for import garments, Shanghai entry exit inspection and Quarantine Bureau has carried out thorough investigation and supervision and spot check on imported garments since 2005.

The failure rate of imported garments has been above 20%.

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The relationship between standards and enterprises

The new version of the national basic safety technical specification for textile products will be formally implemented in August 1, 2012.

Unlike previous standards, this standard is mandatory.

Beginning in August 1, 2012, all textile products circulated in the market will be tested and judged according to the new national standard.

According to the relevant experts, as China's textile and garment industry pformation and upgrading continues to accelerate, the country's textile products quality, safety and environmental protection requirements are gradually improving, the relevant standards are being constantly revised and improved, consumer dress safety will be more secure.

The experts of the fiber inspection institute said that the standard is applicable to all kinds of textile products produced and sold in our country. "The standards in the new GB are clearer and more operable, which are more consistent with the new changes in the clothing market in terms of index requirements and testing methods."

Cao Shengkui, chairman of Beijing Carmen Fashion Co., Ltd., said in an interview: "our standards are indeed relatively high.

The conclusion is that we also act as agents for foreign brands, and the testing standards abroad are generally only 3 to 4, and our testing standards are 16.

Cao Shengkui pointed out that such a high standard Chinese enterprises can do, but the corresponding cost is higher.

Cao Shengkui is of the view that if the cost is worth the cost, it is worthwhile to increase the cost if it is good for the consumers and beneficial to the enterprises themselves.

With the improvement of garment standards, enterprises have indeed been promoted.

From the beginning of the non adaptation to the current adaptation, is the process of continuous improvement of the quality of enterprises, of course, enterprises pay a lot of costs and costs.

This kind of cost and cost are different for different enterprises, and those enterprises with strong strength and deep foundation have been forged and become more steady on the road of development.

And those enterprises that fail to meet the standards due to insufficient strength are finally eliminated naturally and disappear in the sight of people.

From a certain point of view, the standard has played the role of the survival of the fittest, and through this checkpoint, the development of the clothing market and enterprises will develop to a higher and better stage. This undoubtedly has great advantages for the healthy development of the clothing industry.

Cao Shengkui said that enterprises will adapt to the standards when they receive the new standards, and do their own products according to the standards.

In the process of production and design adjustment, in this process, enterprises themselves continue to be standardized and technology upgrading, which is undoubtedly beneficial to the healthy development of enterprises themselves.

Cao Shengkui believes that the recent national standards in the process of making and implementing more humane than before, for example, the children's wear test value increased from 7.5 to 8.5, adopted the voice of enterprises.

Many clothing enterprises used oxalic acid neutralization process to achieve the pH value standard, resulting in a sour smell when clothing came out, affecting consumers' wear.

The adjustment of pH value by the new standard is obviously more in line with environmental protection and market conditions.

And before the new standard did not give the pition period, which is very inconsistent with the law of operation for enterprises. Now the new standard has been postponed for a year, which is more consistent with the law of enterprise development. This is a more humane embodiment of the standard setting process.

China's textile and garment standardization is a long-term accumulation process.

At present, the overall development of the textile and clothing industry based on small and medium-sized enterprises is not balanced, and the technical quality of the employees is also uneven.

In addition, the production equipment, technology, management level and technical force are different. Some enterprises in order to reduce the cost of purchasing low quality surface accessories, lead to the quality of the product can not be guaranteed, thus causing harm to the consumer.

And all kinds of "standards" will further standardize the development of garment enterprises, and bring positive and beneficial effects on the development of the garment industry to a benign sustainable direction.

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Standards and quality and foreign trade

Foreign trade enterprises frequently fall into the "recall door"

According to the statistics released by the Federation of European Union REACH "sole representative", in 2009, the European Union's non food consumer quick notification system (RAPEX) sent a total of 122 recall notice to China's textile and clothing products, an increase of 184% over the same period, accounting for 48% of the total number of textile products made by the EU's RAPEX global recall. In the same year, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission CPSC also sent 33 recall notice to China's textile and clothing products, an increase of 73% over the same period, accounting for 62% of the total number of textile and apparel products recalled by the US global CPSC, ranking the top of the list of CPSC recall.

In 2010, the recall of China's textile and clothing products in the US, Canada and the EU increased dramatically.

According to the annual report of 2010/2011 China Textile and garment industry social responsibility annual report from the China Textile Industry Association's social responsibility office, in 2010, the us recall for China's textile and clothing products was 37, an increase of 54.17% over the previous year, and Canada's recall for China's textile and clothing products was 23, an increase of 228.57% over the same period last year, because the figure in 2009 was only 7, and in 2008 it was 5; the EU's recall for China's textile and clothing products was 304, an increase of 42.72% over 2009.

Entering this year, the recall of Chinese textile and clothing products continues to increase.

In the first half of this year, many Chinese textile and clothing products were recalled by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

For example, in January 11, 2011, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and TheVermontTeddyBearCo.Inc. jointly announced the recall of the HoodieFootie baby pajamas made in China. The number of merchandise recalled was about 800, because the metal buckles connected to pajamas and caps were easy to fall off and were suffocated if they were put into the mouth by infants.

In February 17th, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission recalls about 6700 jackets made in China because the jacket does not meet flammable standards and is at risk of fire.

In June 15th, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Canadian Ministry of health recalled a total of about 23600 Chinese made EmmaGarden Polka dresses. The reason is that the buttons on the front of the clothes are easy to fall off, causing suffocation risk.

There are many similar recall cases, which are only "tip of the iceberg".

From the recall of Chinese textile and apparel products abroad, it is easy to see that the recall rate of China's exports of textile and clothing is on the rise and far higher than that of other countries.

Limited knowledge of foreign testing standards

It is undeniable that foreign trade clothing is frequently "recalled", partly because the export products do exist in their own quality and safety problems.

Some enterprises are weak in quality consciousness, and some production enterprises do not know much about the export status of textile and clothing, lack of quality concept, fail to carry out production management and quality control according to normal requirements, and some enterprises are lucky enough to neglect production links to reduce costs.

"Fiber content is not a difficult problem to solve, but the reason why the problem is always there is not that enterprises do not pay attention to the problem, but that the enterprise has defects in quality supervision."

Kong Liping, director of the national quality supervision and inspection center of fiber textile and garment products, analyzed the problem of fiber content as an example.

There are also some small and medium-sized enterprises, because of their small size, they can only pick up small bills, take foreign shoes enterprises as an example, some single colors are only a few hundred pairs, and a pair of shoes cost up to more than 10 yuan.

"We mainly do export processing. We only have a few profit margins.

The raw materials used are all bought. If these are tested one by one, the cost of exporting a batch of shoes will be tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of pieces. The sum of a single bill is not enough for testing.

This is the general helplessness of Jinjiang's small shoe trade enterprises.

On the other hand, in the view of less "bad money" foreign trade enterprises, what is more troubling is that there are no high-end third party inspection organizations in the region. They should be sent to the first tier cities or even the third party inspection organizations abroad to test. In this way, the detection time only takes up 1/3 or even 2/3 of the production period. Once the production cycle is not well arranged, the risk of delay in delivery is very easy.

But in addition to these reasons, the crux of the deeper level lies in the fact that quite a few foreign trade enterprises have obstacles to synchronize information and information with foreign countries.

Experts from the industry pointed out that the notification and recall of China's textile and clothing products by importing countries is not a technical issue, but rather a lack of understanding of the import country's testing standards.

Domestic and foreign trade enterprises and relevant organizations or organizations of importing countries did not communicate in a timely manner, the information was not smooth, and they did not pay attention to the latest industry information of importing countries, especially some newly promulgated laws and regulations.

Domestic textile and garment enterprises blindly produce according to the design provided by the designer, but there are numerous phenomena that the importers' trade laws do not understand.

Take children's clothing enterprises as an example, some foreign trade enterprises of children's clothing do not understand foreign technical regulations. Some enterprises only know how to produce according to their customers' requirements, and they lack sufficient identification ability for whether the design plan is in line with foreign technical regulations.

At this point, Yang Ping, deputy director of the China Textile Industry Association's testing center, holds the same view.

"China's foreign trade enterprises frequently encounter" recall door ", to a large extent, it is related to the degree of mastery and understanding of foreign testing standards.

Yang Ping told our reporter.

Can an institution provide authoritative information for enterprises?

For foreign trade enterprises, the early warning or recall notification by importing countries and regions will not only cause direct economic losses, but also other related expenses involved in the process of early-warning or recall, such as breach of contract fees, compensation fees for importers, and so on.

It is not only the loss of money, but also the negative impact on the image of foreign trade enterprises.

Because in the early warning and recall reports of the countries and regions such as Europe, America, Japan and other countries, the information on the source of imports, product brands, reasons for security warning or recall, and penalties should be specified in detail.

This will greatly hurt foreign consumers' enthusiasm for buying, and eventually lead to the withdrawal of the product from the market of importing countries.

How to deal with all kinds of import standards and new regulations has become a difficult problem for export textile and garment enterprises in China.

For this reason, Yang Ping, deputy director of the China Textile Industry Association's testing center, gave the suggestion that the most important thing is to strictly control the quality of the enterprises, and at the same time, have a deep understanding and familiarity with the laws and regulations of the importing countries.

In terms of quality control, there is no need to say much, because this is the most basic condition for any enterprise to survive and develop itself.

In understanding and familiarity with the laws and regulations of importing countries, China's foreign trade enterprises still have a long way to go, and there are many links to learn and master.

First of all, enterprises should give full play to their subjective initiative.

Some foreign trade enterprises often complain that it is difficult to obtain timely and accurate changes in relevant laws and regulations information and testing standards of importing countries.

In fact, "as long as an enterprise has relevant foreign language talents, it can directly search the latest information about the testing standards on foreign websites, such as the official website of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the official website of the European Union, etc. the information of these counterpart websites is updated in a timely manner and is free."

Yang Ping, deputy director of the China Textile Industry Association's testing center, was not aware of whether he was waking up to those foreign trade enterprises in distress.

Here is another example.

Luo Qingmeng is the boss of a clothing trade company of Shishi Nanyang Road. He has been fighting for more than 10 years in the European Union's battleground. The company's 80% shipping list comes from the European Union's customers. Its annual business volume is as high as one million yuan.

For the new regulations on EU REACH regulations that have just been implemented, Luo Qingmeng said that they have been thoroughly familiar with every specific content of the new regulation and strictly tested according to the regulations.

"If we want to continue to gain a foothold in the European market, we must declare according to the regulations. Otherwise, the products that have been exported to the EU market will be punished if they break the rules, and the products that have not been exported will not be exported later."

Only Luo Qingmeng, a foreign trade enterprise that keeps a high degree of awareness and awareness of the new regulations and regulations of the importing country, can always be active in the market of importing countries.

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In addition to giving full play to the initiative of foreign trade enterprises, the promotion of external factors seems to be more effective.

The high-end, authoritative third party testing organization is strongly called by enterprises.

Many foreign trade enterprises, because there are no high-end third party inspection organizations, have to send the products to the authoritative third party inspection organizations in the first tier cities according to the requirements of customers. This virtually increases the time cost of enterprises, and once the production cycle of enterprises is not well arranged, it is very prone to delay the delivery time and other risks.

Although China's Textile Industry Association's testing center and other institutions have already set up sub laboratories in some industrial clusters to facilitate local enterprises to conduct timely testing, there are also high-end inspection organizations such as TUV's third party testing institutions and other "foreign identities" to cooperate with some local industrial clusters, so that export products can be inspected in the province. However, some foreign trade enterprises can not enjoy this benefit due to geographical location, financial strength and other reasons.

Another point is also the most critical: so far, our country has not yet a specialized department serving foreign trade export textile and garment enterprises to understand and grasp the import country laws and regulations, standard changes and other information.

Foreign trade enterprises do not have effective channels to understand the relevant foreign testing standards in time.

Where they should go to understand is the key to understanding the problem.

"This is indeed a problem. Now only the official website of the AQSIQ has some relevant foreign testing standards and other information. In fact, there should be a special government department responsible for sorting and publishing the information in this area, so that foreign trade enterprises can understand the information and testing standard changes that they want to know in time, accurately and systematically."

Yang Ping, deputy director of the China Textile Industry Association's testing center, spoke in an interview with our reporter.

Extended reading

Changes in basic technical specifications for national textile products

GB18401 - 2010 "national textile product basic safety technical specification" (hereinafter referred to as the 10 edition standard) has been released in January 14, 2011. This version takes the place of the current GB18401 2003 (hereinafter referred to as 03 edition standard), which will be implemented in August 1, 2012.

The national basic safety technical specification for textile products is a mandatory national standard. It is a necessary condition for the product to enter the market and is the most basic technical requirement for ensuring the harmlessness of textile products to human health. It plays a very important role in the production and sale of textiles, as well as routine supervision and inspection.

Therefore, it is particularly important to correctly understand the standard provisions and clarify the difference between them and the 03 edition.

Compared with the 03 edition, the 10 edition standard is mainly applied in the scope of application, the definition of infant textile products, the classification of products and the presentation of basic safety technical requirements, the addition of "4- amino azobenzene" in the carcinogenic aromatic amines, the change of pH value requirements, and the description of the color fastness test, etc. all aspects have been adjusted, which can be called the enhanced version of GB18401 2003.