From January to February in 2020， the production of dyed and printed fabrics was reported to reach 4913 million meters， a two-digit reduction by 22.42%， and further drop by 29.88% for sales income that totalized 24.706 billion Yuan from 1560 dyeing and printing companies in the above designated size. More jaw-dropping is the profit gains that had a freefall by 101.8% while the export delivery value by minus 23.9% as opposed to the same period in 2019.

Normally， the swim or sink of corporate profit rests with many factors， but the big three costs in running a business are critical for any companys bottom line that appears in red or in black after everything has been calculated. Let us take a look at those big three costs （financial cost， management cost， sales cost） in the first two months of 2020 in the dyeing and printing sector， which increased by 9.39%， to be more exact， the dyeing and printing companies for cotton fabric by 8.87%， for manmade fiber fabric by 14.08%.

Taken together， there are 768 companies running in red， accounting for 48.72% of all the dyeing and printing companies censored in statistic system， a large increase by 16.15 percentage points over the corresponding months last year. The total loss of money in these red bottom-line companies added up to 1086 million Yuan， up by 46.41%.

China Dyeing and Printing Association （CDPA） issued its annual report in late March 2020 for the economic performance in dyeing and printing sector（Annual Report 2019）， stating that the twelve months 2019 witnessed 0.83% increase in business sales income for 283.153 billion Yuan， a drop by 2.15 percentage points， and the profit increased by 6.49% to amount to 15.835 billion Yuan， but still a considerable downslide by 11.44 percentage points as compared with 2018 due to the increase in the big three costs that take up a lion-share of 85.64% of the business income.

The number of companies running at a loss amounted to 309， representing 18.92% of the total companies under statistic censor， up by 9.76% to increase by 21.24 percentage points higher over 2018. The year of 2019 saw an increase in international trade for $29.144 billion by 7.34%， resulting in trade surplus for $25.689 billion， up by 10.4%.

Speaking of the import， the eight big categories of dyeing and printing textiles， including the dyed and printed cotton or manmade fiber or their blended fabrics in different textures of weaves and knits， as per CDPAs own standards for identifying the product lines in the sector， were registered for 878 million meters for $1727 million， 12.62% down in volume and 10.94% drop in value， about 1.97 dollar/meter on average， up by 1.92%.

The export of the eight big categories from January to December in 2019 amounted to 26.823 billion meters， and to 27.417 billion dollars， enjoying increase in volume by 12.83% and in value by 8.75%， but the averaged unit price decreased by 3.62% to sell 1.02 dollar/meter in arithmetic weighted mean.

In the report， China Dyeing and Printing Association predicts that the global pandemic impacts will slow down the world economic growth as it is the severest challenge since the financial crisis in 2008， and will weaken the support force to the market recovery. The dyeing and printing industry will bear even greater pressure in sustaining a continually smooth run and a more arduous task for reshaping the industry for better development.

And sure enough， the opening months in the first quarter of the new year is not a “well-begun”， and how far away is it from “half done”？