CHINESE textile companies have been actively exploring and expanding into the U.S. market through increased innovation, upgraded services and bigger global footprints, according to industry insiders.

“We’ve been investing 7 percent of our annual revenue into research and development efforts since 2015,” said Jiang Nan, executive director and general manager of RomRol Outdoor, a Jiangsu Province-based company committed to developing functional fabric and clothing to serve mostly outdoor brands and outdoor fashion collections.

At the recently concluded China Textile and Apparel Trade Show in New York City, RomRol Outdoor presented the attendees, namely retailers, designers and brands, a catwalk show highlighting its various cutting-edge technologies. Its light-absorbing fabric and temperature sensing fabric proved to be most eye-catching.

RomRol Outdoor is just one of the many Chinese companies that has emphasized technology and innovation in order to be more competitive in the global market.

“We are still a decade behind our counterparts in countries like Germany and Japan, but that also means we have huge potential for growth,” said Jiang.

He said that Chinese companies used to only consider the already large domestic market, but as the domestic market becomes saturated and communication with international partners becomes ever closer, they are now more eager to compete on the global stage and expand their international market share.

The show was held in parallel with the Home Textiles Sourcing, Apparel Sourcing USA and the Texworld USA expos, which were all held at the Javits Center earlier this week, bringing together more than 300 exhibitors from 17 countries and regions around the world.

More than half of the exhibitors were from China, and they specialized in producing cotton, functional fabrics, knits, faux fur, embroidery and lace.

Headquartered in China’s southeastern city of Xiamen, the brand Grit & Zest established a branch in the United States in 2012. Specializing in swim, active, athleisure and casual wear, the company is one of the earliest ones to gain a presence in the United States in order to communicate with customers more smoothly and respond to their requests more quickly.

Mary Chua, president of Grit & Zest’s U.S. firm, said that with the comparative advantages of labor resources and competitive prices, it used to be easy to sell products in the U.S. market.

“But not anymore,” said Chua, adding that starting in 2015, the company has been offering more value-added products when doing business with its customers.

The brand offers design help and expert supervision from sample cycle to production. Its services include collection development, multi-language tech-packs, textile design, print design, graphic design, fabric and trim sourcing, testing, hardware design, label or packaging design and garment fitting checks.

Chua said the company’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to offer the whole package. In addition, if a startup only has a design concept for its clothing line but does not know where to start, Grit & Zest can also help.

“We have to adapt and transform, closely following the trends,” said Chua.

An increasing number of Chinese companies are also expanding their global footprints to show their U.S. customers that they are flexible and have sufficient capacity.

Xu Yan, assistant general manager of Jiangsu Guotai Huasheng Industrial Co., said that she has established quite a few partnerships with manufacturers in Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, and they already have three plants of their own in Myanmar.

“It all started in the past two to three years when we realized we had to look for alternative manufacturing bases other than China,” said Xu. (Xinhua)