China saw a slowdown in investment growth for textile industry over the first seven months of this year, due partly to export slowdown and enthusiasm dampened by low profitability among manufacturers, sources with China National Textile and Apparel Council said on Saturday.

Data provided by the council show that from January to July, the textile sector realized 153.41 billion yuan (US$22.4 billion) in fixed-assets investment, a growth of 13.14 percent on the same period of last year. The growth rate was 12.6 percentage points lower than that for the whole of last year.

New projects started for the sector numbered 3,796 in the first seven months, down 10.47 percent from the same period of last year.

According to analysts with the leading textile information provider Web Textiles, in China textile manufacturers take only 10percent of the profit, while the remaining 90 percent was shared by brand owners, wholesalers, distributors and retailers.

In breakdown, the total fixed-assets investment included 86.5 billion yuan in textile manufacturers, up 6.81 percent, 47.23 billion yuan in garments, footwear and headwear companies, up 20.03 percent, and 16.23 billion yuan in chemical fiber makers, up31.24 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008)