Automatic production lines run orderly, intelligent robots work step by step... Walking into the "5G+ smart factory" workshop of a knitting enterprise in Qingshanhu District, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, automated production can be seen everywhere.

As a traditional dominant industry and an important industry to enrich the people in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, the modern knitting industry in Nanchang arose in the late 1980s. Qingshan Lake District, with more than 2,000 knitting clothing enterprises, is the main gathering area of modern knitting industry in Nanchang, and is also a well-known knitting clothing industry base in China.

In recent years, labor-intensive industries bear the double pressure of enterprise transformation and overseas market contraction, and the pain of traditional clothing and textile industry is aggravated. Under the new situation of rising labor cost and changing foreign trade situation, how does Nanchang modern knitting industry transform and develop? Reporters recently went to Nanchang Qingshan Lake District to visit.

Located in Qingshan Lake District, Nanchang Zhongtuo Clothing Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongtuo Clothing") has carried out technical transformation of "5G+ smart factory" in 2020 to reduce the complexity of workers' technology, simplify the process and improve the output value.

"Under the intelligent system, we take the mobile phone as the terminal of the employees. By scanning the two-dimensional code, we can collect the production progress of the employees in real time, including the quality can also be tracked, and basically realize the paperless office." Qiu Zhengxiong, deputy general manager of Zhongtuo clothing, said that through digital empowerment, the company's production efficiency, product quality and other aspects have been greatly improved, "production efficiency has increased by about 20 percent, labor costs have been saved by about 30 percent."

At the cusp of the digital era, intelligent and information-based transformation and upgrading such as "Internet Plus" and "5G plus" have gradually become a new track for enterprise competition. To this end, Qingshan Lake District of Nanchang encourages enterprises to introduce intelligent production equipment through policy guidance to boost the transformation of the knitting industry from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing".

Xiaojun Xiaojun, deputy director of the Bureau of Science and Technology and Industrial Information Technology of Qingshan Lake District, Nanchang City, introduced that the district will give appropriate financial subsidies in the transformation of intelligent equipment for knitting enterprises. "In addition to policy and financial support, we pay more attention to solving some practical problems for enterprises, such as solving the livelihood problems of employees' accommodation and children's enrollment."

According to statistics, at present, more than 5000 sets of intelligent equipment have been promoted and applied in Qingshan Lake District of Nanchang City, and the application rate of intelligent equipment in key knitting enterprises has reached more than 60%. 5G and other digital means have been gradually widely applied in the knitting industry.

"Three export t-shirts, one from Qingshan Lake." The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the international market, putting pressure on knitwear exports. In the face of market pressure, many knitting enterprises in Qingshan Lake District practice "internal skills" and try to "walk on two legs" in the international and domestic markets.

"The purchasing power and consumption power of foreign markets are going down." Yan Ming, manager of Nanchang Zhongda Garment Co., LTD., SAID THAT at present, the company is actively expanding the international market, stable overseas orders at the same time, export to expand the domestic market. "We have also started to research children's wear brands on our own, seeking to diversify."

Li Xiaojun said that Qingshan Lake District gave full play to the role of textile chamber of Commerce and other industry organizations, specially established Qingshan Lake District Designers Association, through the introduction of Jiangxi cross-border e-commerce association and Nanchang modern knitwear Chamber of Commerce, with the local cross-border e-commerce industrial park and flow economy industrial park, further expand the international and domestic market.

By promoting digital empowerment, opening up the domestic market and building its own brand, Qingshanhu District of Nanchang City is striving to build a modern knitwear industry cluster of 100 billion levels.