China plan's positive spin-offs

Australian Wool Innovation China country manager Xiao-Ya Wei said China's centralised government was an important factor to consider when trying to boost wool sales.

"Every five years there is a new five-year plan released by the central government," she said.

"So it's quite important for our strategy to be in-line with local government here."

Ms Xiao, who spoke to Australian woolgrowers as part of the 2014 Elders China Wool Tour, said she had extracted "a few things" from the latest plan that were relevant to woollen textiles in China

"The first is they have said they want to further improve the industry's innovation capacity, so the government is encouraging the industry to focus more on innovation and value-adding," she said.

"Secondly to achieve new breakthroughs in brand building.

"Thirdly there has been a slowdown in the economy but when compared to other countries China's economy continues its momentum to grow at a certain rate a year and to raise the domestic consumption of the GDP.

"These are some points that we think are very relevant to our industry and also our strategy here."

Ms Xiao said AWI was working in China to promote Australian Merino wool through marketing, research and development and innovation.

"What we advocate is that wool is natural, biodegradable and renewable," she said.

"This is always the slogan we deliver to our key partners and we work with them to deliver this key message to industry, their downstream customers and end consumers."

She said China was the hub of the global textile industry.

"Not only for general textiles but especially for wool," she said.

"It's also the world's largest wool processing country and the largest supplier of woollen products across the world.

"We have the biggest share of Australian wool, nowadays export for Australian wool to China has grown to 70 to 80 per cent."

In recent years there had been a shift in woollen textile exports from China.

In the past one third of Australian Merino wool remained in China, with the remaining two-thirds exported to developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan.

But this had now reversed with two-thirds sold in China as the domestic sales ratio for China's wool textiles had increased.

"The consumer market is of importance," she said.

"China is changing because global consumer markets are changing and the centre of consumption is shifting to China."

She said there were three factors to consider for wool consumption: population, weather and wealth.

"In China we have the big population, we have the cold weather and in recent years with the growth of the GDP people are becoming more and more wealthy which has helped the growth in wool consumption in China," she said.

Ms Xiao said AWI were working with three different sectors in the textile industry in China - manufacturers, fashion designers, brands, and retailers and consumers.

"Only through these, with their brands and their products, can we deliver the message to the consumer," she said.

"Our aim is to tell the consumers what the benefits of wool are and why they should choose wool?"

AWI works with leading woollen mills, including the Sunshine Group and Nanshan.

"For almost all the leading companies we have a very close relationship, especially at Nanshan were we have many leading and exciting developments," she said.

"We work with China's best manufacturers to develop, produce and market the very best, innovative apparel collections inspired by Australian Merino wool.

"We inspire fashion designers to create exciting new collections that utilise the unique natural properties of Australian Merino wool."

Social and digital media such as Sina Weibo (Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China) had become an increasingly important way to market Australian Merino wool to consumers.

AWI's page had "almost" 80,000 followers.

"We're aiming to grow this to more," she said.

"We have also created a WeChat, one of the most popular social media forums in China where we post market intelligence, our events, etc, so we can be interactive with our industry partners, designers, key opinion leaders and industry partners."

Miranda Kenny travelled to China courtesy of Elders as part of the 2014 Elders China Wool Tour.