Building Country Image and Upgrading China's Apparel Industry

Country image, dimensioned by innovation, workmanship, design and prestige has become one of the competitive sources when products are sold in global markets. The paper examines the relationship between country image building and industrial upgrading, and explores ways to establish country image through apparel industrial upgrading efforts such as process upgrading, product upgrading, functional upgrading and intersect oral upgrading. Apparel industry is characterized by global production and regional clustering. Firms in China should leverage their linkages of global production networks to improve design, marketing and innovation capabilities, and at the same time integrate domestic apparel clusters into entire value chain and produce for internal markets. Successful apparel industrial upgrading in China will lead to country image building which helps Chinese brands go global.