Myths and Realities of China's Apparel Industry

Rising export and market shares and rampant bankruptcies coexist in China's apparel industry. Against the backdrop of the global value chain, the by-country industrial competitiveness evaluation system based on final products is failing. Using the global value chain theory, this article investigates the international competitiveness of China's apparel industry and introduces the case study of Nike's global value chain, reaching the conclusion that existing evaluations have exaggerated the international competitiveness of China's apparel industry. China's apparel industry is at the lowest level of the global value chain, and most local enterprises have not entered the mainstream global value chain and are still internationally uncompetitive. As far as China's current economic development level and targets are concerned, it may be too unrealistic to discuss industrial upgrading entirely from the perspective of OEM-ODM-OBM. China's apparel producers should stick to both paths: one is the priority to strengthen manufacturing and OEM; the other is to do more learning to go beyond sub-contract manufacturing and prepare for long-term growth of OBM. Building middle and high-end apparel producers and creating local brands by virtue of China's status as a big country is the right path for development given the industry’s present situation.