The textile industry has recently witnessed a mix of good and bad news. Indonesia has terminated the anti-dumping investigation on China's filament yarns, while Pakistan has made an affirmative final ruling on China's polyester filament yarns. This "extreme contrast" situation directly reflects the complexity and uncertainty of the global trade environment. Indonesia's decision has relieved domestic yarn enterprises, but Pakistan's high anti-dumping duties (5.35% - 20.78%) are like a knife hanging over their heads, forcing enterprises to readjust their export strategies. What is even more worrying is that behind this trade friction lies a deeper industry contradiction - the coexistence of idle high-end production capacity and low-end price wars. The operating rate in East China is 68% vs. 92% in Vietnam. But what is truly fatal is not overcapacity, but the vulnerability of the industrial chain.
Indonesia terminates anti-dumping investigation, an unexpected "suspended sentence"
Indonesia has terminated the anti-dumping investigation on Huahe Fiber's filament yarn on the grounds that domestic supply is insufficient and imposing anti-dumping duties "is not in the national interest". This decision seems favorable, but in fact it exposes the shortcomings of Indonesia's domestic industry - they simply cannot do without the yarn supply from China. When the survey was launched in September 2023, domestic enterprises in Indonesia were still full of confidence. However, they gave up in less than two years. Behind this reversal lies the dual advantages of Chinese yarn in terms of cost and quality: Do local Indonesian enterprises want to replace it? There isn't even a door! A certain fabric business owner in Shaoxing has done the math. The price of Indonesian yarn is 15% higher than that of Chinese yarn, and the delivery cycle is also twice as long. This gap cannot be caught up in the short term.
But don't be too happy too early. The "probation" in Indonesia doesn't mean permanent security. Their Anti-dumping Commission (KADI) left a fallback option in the announcement, emphasizing that "a re-evaluation may be possible in the future." This ambiguous attitude is like a time bomb that could explode at any moment. Domestic enterprises should seize the window of opportunity and quickly consolidate their market share. Otherwise, when the next investigation makes a comeback, they may not be so lucky.
The "tough guy" of Pakistan, the chain reaction of five years of high tariffs
In contrast, the final ruling in Pakistan was simply "adding insult to injury". Anti-dumping duties ranging from 5.35% to 20.78% directly cut off the price advantage of Chinese yarns. What's even more ruthless is that this measure has lasted for five years, almost blocking the export space of small and medium-sized enterprises. The owner of a yarn factory in Wujiang quipped, "The Pakistani market accounts for 30% of our exports. Now our profits have dropped to zero, so we can only shift our focus to Southeast Asia." However, Southeast Asia is not a safe haven either - yarn enterprises from Vietnam and India have long been eyeing the market. In 2024, Vietnam's yarn exports to Pakistan soared by 40%, and the prices were even 5% lower than those from China.
This squeezing effect is triggering a chain reaction. As Pakistan is the third-largest export market for Chinese yarn (only after Vietnam and Bangladesh), many enterprises that rely on this market have been forced to reduce production. One group's solution was very violent: using an integrated device to cut the cost to the lowest level in the industry, but small and medium-sized factories could only watch helplessly. In this way, the pace of industry reshuffling will be even faster, and the Matthew effect of the weak being eliminated and the strong getting stronger will become more and more obvious.
The unavoidable "industrial chain upgrade"
Whether it is Indonesia's "loosening" or Pakistan's "tightening", both point to the same issue: China's yarn industry must break free from the quagmire of price wars. The 31.9% decline in net profit of a certain petrochemical company in the first quarter of 2025 is the most tragic warning - relying solely on low prices to capture the market will sooner or later kill oneself.
The deeper impact is that this trade friction forces enterprises to accelerate their transformation. High-end products such as digital printing and functional yarns are becoming new tracks. For instance, a certain enterprise in Zhejiang Province has transformed to produce antibacterial yarn, with its unit price doubling directly and orders even scheduled until next year. But this kind of upgrade is not something everyone can keep up with: the goal is to recoup the investment within six months → Step 1 is to invest heavily in research and development → Pay attention to dye compatibility... Just hearing this gives small and medium-sized factories a headache. From this, it can be seen that the competition in the future will not only be about cost, but also about technology and response speed.
In summary, the bipolar rulings made by Indonesia and Pakistan are not a technical issue or a financial problem, but rather a concentrated outburst of the resilience of the industrial chain. In the short term, enterprises have to promptly adjust their export strategies and distribute their eggs in more baskets. In the middle term, we must tackle the tough issue of technological upgrading; otherwise, we will be eliminated. In the long term, it is necessary to restructure the global supply chain and transform "Made in China" into "Intelligently Made in China".
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