“Established textiles firms like Johnstons of Elgin, Hawick Cashmere and Barrie – now part of the luxury goods firm Chanel – will be taking part, as will designers Rebecca Torres, Hilary Grant and Iona Crawford. They’ll be able to show their work to more than 110,000 visitors from 20 countries.According to Cathy Black, head of Scottish Enterprise’s textiles team, “China’s luxury market is seeing year-on-year growth of 35% and its fashion industry is set to become the world’s second largest by 2020. Over the next five years, 30% of growth in the global fashion market is expected to come from China so there is a massive opportunity for Scottish companies producing high end, design-led and luxury products that will appeal to the aspirational and style-conscious Chinese consumer. From this event alone, we’re hoping to generate at least £1m of new additional sales for the participating companies and given the size of the market, we think this could be the start of something very exciting for the industry.”.The export sales director from Johnstons of Elgin, Ian Pryde, was optimistic about the visit, pointing out that “the emergence of China as one of the most important consumer markets in the developing world, and the growth of a new genre of discerning luxury consumer, is fuelling an increasing demand for our product.” He added that the company’s range of products were not currently available in the mainland Chinese market “…but we’re working hard to rectify this and we think the CHIC exhibition could act as the springboard to helping us achieve our ambitions in China.”.One objective of the trade mission is to allow those companies thinking of trading in China to talk to those who’ve already enjoyed some success. Both Kinloch Anderson and J&D Wilkie have entered the Chinese market within the past few years, the latter setting up a factory in Jiaxing five years ago that transformed its business back in Scotland.Bob Low, its Managing Director, said that “the speed in which we were able to scale up our business to volume production in China exceeded all of our expectations. We now have a yarn spinning and weaving unit operating six days round the clock. Much of the yarn production comes to Scotland for weaving and this has resulted in over 40% growth, in the last three years, in our sales from Scotland to Europe.“China is a country of fascinating differences in culture, food and the rate of change compared to the UK. The domestic demand is still growing at a phenomenal rate and there remains a significant perceived value in Western goods. There is no substitute for experiencing this first hand and any opportunity to do so should be seized”.The trade mission will include a tour of some of Beijing’s department stores to help companies understand more about the retail market plus an international match-making session to introduce Scottish participants to Chinese buyers, retailers and distributors”
Date:3/19/2013
Source:www.mrketplace.com