EU REACH Regulations Impact Textile and Garment Industry

For many years, the EU has been the main market for textiles and apparel exports in Jiaxing and is ranked as the second largest export market after Asia. However, with the appearance of REACH regulations, the frequent increase of SVHC, the EU has quietly built a “green” trade barrier in front of textile and apparel export enterprises in our city.

It is understood that the REACH regulation is called "Registration, Evaluation, Licensing and Restriction of Chemicals". At the end of 2008, the REACH Regulation announced the first batch of 15 SVHCs for substances of very high concern, of which 13 were related to textiles. In December 2010, 8 new substances of high concern were added.

According to statistics from the Customs, in February 2011, the textile and garment export volume of Jiaxing City reached US$931 million, an increase of 8.84 percentage points over the same period of last year. Among them, 247 million U.S. dollars were exported to the EU, an increase of 5.42% year-on-year, accounting for 26.5% of total textile and apparel exports. “In the short-term, the REACH regulation will bring certain impact to textile and clothing companies,” said the relevant person in charge of the Foreign Trade Bureau of the Municipality.

The impact is mainly reflected in three aspects. Firstly, the inspection and test costs of chemical content in textiles and the price of using qualified chemicals have been greatly increased, which has increased the direct cost of export goods; the second is the introduction of more extensive and stricter chemicals used in the textile production process. Requirements and restrictions; The third is that the REACH regulation legally protects the interests of importers and greatly increases the difficulty of exporting textiles and apparel to the EU.

It is understood that most of the enterprises in Jiaxing City currently do not pay enough attention to REACH regulations, and even quite a few companies have never heard of REACH regulations. The Municipal Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation learned from the internationally renowned testing organization SGS that many companies in Jiaxing have actively tried to ensure that their products meet the requirements of the EU REACH regulations. However, a considerable number of companies are passively conducting tests, generally only The test is scheduled only when the customer has a mandatory requirement.

SGS experts reminded that as textile and garment companies, they need to keep abreast of the REACH regulations, grasp the relevant parts of them, and be able to penetrate into the production process, and control the quality of products from the source to meet the requirements of REACH regulations, so as to become passive. initiative.