"Made in China" as they were, very few garments rolled out by textile firms of the world''s most populous nation bear globally recognized brand names like Pierre Cardin and Chanel.

Despite its status as a leading textile producer in the world, China still lacks brand names of its own, both for garments and textile machinery.

That is why a shirt made in China and embedded with a foreign brand sells expensively on the world market, but only 20 percent of the profit goes to the Chinese factory.

Chinese homemade textile machineries are rarely available even at domestic workshops, most of whom have imported high end production facilities from Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

"We''ve bought Brother brand sewing machines from Japan," said Li Jian, a quality control inspector at Leinuo Garments Co. in east China''s Shandong Province. "We used to have a host of problems with Chinese made equipment."

Li''s company, based in the city of Tai''an, turns out embedded garments for Warmart outlets worldwide. Though it hires a popular, resident Chinese-speaking Canadian to promote its products on TV commercials, Leinuo is rarely known to worldwide consumers.

At the Daiyin Group based in the provincial capital Jinan, chief designer Lu Jincai skillfully shows his audience how a preset computer program offers more than 300 designs of Western-style jackets within a mater of 10 minutes. "The same job takes three to four hours of manual work," he said.

Lu said his company recently spent 10 million yuan (1.2 million US dollars) upgrading its production line with state-of-the-art designer softwares and globally recognized sewing machines."We believe top facilities will produce top quality garments," he said.

He was echoed by Liu Chunwei, vice president of Shandong Taifeng Textile Group.

The group used to purchase home-made equipment for its manufacturing facilities in Australia, but their workshop production was suspended several times by local authorities for equipment failures and loud noises, acknowledged Liu.

Liu said his company then bought textile equipment from Germany and ROK. "We have to say their equipment is of better quality and the suppliers provide good services, too. Whenever we dial their logistic hotline, their maintenance engineers will come shortly."

As the largest producer and exporter of textiles and garments in the world, China''s textile exports totaled 95.1 billion US dollars last year, making up 16 percent of the world total.

But its booming textile industry has been facing great pressure from other countries, particularly the United States and members of the European Union, after the global textile quota system ended on Jan. 1, 2005.

Under the new circumstances, experts say it is a pressing task for China''s textile industry to nurture more globally renowned brand names in order to sharpen its competitive edge on the world market.

"Domestic textile companies need to improve their product mix, diversify export products and further explore the international market," said Gao Yong, vice president of China Textile Industry Association in an interview with Xinhua.

Source: Xinhua