China’s swimwear capital trying to stay afloat in crisis
There may be no place on Earth that had been looking forward to summer more than Xingcheng, a laid-back seaside town dotted with the occasional high-rise.
Hot sun, cold drinks.
Long, languorous days at the beach.
But, most important, swimsuits.
Xingcheng, an out-ofthe-way factory town on China’s northeastern coast, makes swimwear that is exported to the United States and dozens of other countries — in total, a quarter of the world’s swimwear, it estimates. This year, though, when China forced its people to stay home to stop the coronavirus, Xingcheng’s production of trunks, bikinis and one-pieces ground to a halt.
Then, just as China started getting back to work, the epidemic became a pandemic, and the rest of the world began shutting down. Demand for Xingcheng’s swimsuits dried up. Factories and workshops that reopened — masks, disinfectant and temperature checks in place — had little to do.
Some thought about making other stretchy products instead: yoga clothes, scuba diving suits, wrestling outfits. But that would have meant buying new material, finding new suppliers, maybe even investing in new machines.
“Nobody was working. Nobody was earning money,” said Yao Haifu, 42, who has worked in swimwear factories in Xingcheng for more than a decade. “In a word? It was difficult.”
The global contraction is hitting all of China’s giant export sector hard. The country’s exports were up only 0.5% in June from a year earlier, even as the overall economy rebounded more strongly. But as Chinese industrial towns go, Xingcheng may take longer than most to recover.
Across the globe, pools, beaches and water parks are reopening cautiously. Travel and tourism are still mostly nonstarters. Perhaps never in recent history has so little of humankind had any need for new swimwear.
And so, with a peak season’s worth of sales already largely lost, Xingcheng’s factories are scraping by an order at a time, waiting for world governments to get a grip on the illness. For fear to abate and economies to mend.
For more people to venture back into the water — or even just near it.
“It’s the same abroad and at home — there’s still no spending power,” said Hao Jing, a trader who sells swimsuits from Xingcheng to international buyers.
While not a particularly well-known town even within China, Xingcheng produced $2 billion worth of swimwear in 2018, according to the government’s official Xinhua News Agency. There are 1,200 swimwear companies in the town, Xinhua says, employing as many as 100,000 people.
Yao sews swimsuits in a small factory — 40 or so workers — above an auto repair shop. He is busier than he was a few months ago, when orders seemed nonexistent. Many evenings, he even works overtime.
But Yao’s sense is that the garments he is helping to produce are largely going into warehouses instead of being sold right away. Swimwear brands are still just stocking up for when customers want to buy again, he said.
“Once there’s demand, they can sell these orders and make up for the shortfall during this period,” he said.