Silk Digital Printing Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Wensli Group is likely to put its 9 million sq m digital printing silk fabric project into operation by June 2014.

 

Once the project at Wensli Xiasha silk industry park goes operational, it is expected to generate an annual sales income of 450 million yuan.

 

Wensli Group general manager Yu Wei Jie told reporters that the work for setting up the digital printing silk fabric project started around a year ago.

 

The digital printing machines with Wensli at present do not have high work efficiency and print only 50 metres of silk fabric per hour. In order to meet the demand, the company has to outsource some printing work to other factories, but it may result in poor color fastness or wrong colour versions and other problems. It would also increase the silk production cycle by 7-10 days.

 

The newly acquired domestic digital printing machine, together with Wensli patent ink and printhead technology, can print 200 metres of silk fabric per hour. In addition to increasing production efficiency, the new machine also saves a lot of energy compared to traditional printing technologies, which will save lot of costs.

 

Compared to traditional printing and dyeing technologies, the new machine reduces dye consumption by 30 percent, water consumption by 85 percent, and power consumption by 45 percent.

 

In some foreign markets, the demand for silk printed fabric is relatively large, but due to its limited production capacity the firm is currently not able to accept all orders, and once the new digital printing fabric project becomes operational, such issues will be resolved, Yu Wei Jie said.

 

The demand for silk printed fabrics is likely to grow in future as such fabrics would be used in custom clothing, soft furnishings and other silk products.

 

Wensli will use 60 percent of the production at the new unit for making its own silk products, and the remaining 40 percent will be exported.