Humen, a town in Guangdong province, southern China, known for manufacturing womenswear, is now gearing up to focus more on children’s wear, reports China Daily.
In August this year, the Humen administration introduced policies to support production of kidswear, and the town aim to become the most prominent children’s wear production and exhibition centre in China, said Li Dingru, deputy town chief of Humen.
By the end of 2012, about 600 enterprises were producing children’s clothing in Humen, with their annual sales touching 9.7 billion yuan, accounting for 25 percent of Humen’s overall garment sales of 38.6 billion yuan, the report states.
Aiming to increase the share of kidswear in its total apparel production, the town is now setting up a children’s apparel manufacturing facility on a 50,000 sq m of area, consisting of 1,500 rooms, which is expected to become operational next year.
Humen is currently the largest apparel manufacturing cluster in China. It has more than 2,300 apparel production and processing enterprises that together employ over 200,000 people.
In addition, there are also more than 1,000 companies in apparel-related industries, such as printing and dyeing.
Meanwhile, apparel enterprises in Humen are also embracing e-commerce as the local government is sparing no efforts to develop the industry.
In January this year, the Humen E-commerce Association was established to better compete with garment companies in Zhejiang province.
China has more than 220 million children in the under-14 age group, and their total apparel purchases could cost about 150 billion yuan a year, according to a report from a local consultancy firm.
