Leveraging advanced technology to expand business to Europe and Vietnam
Eric Huang, Sales Manager David Lin, Factory Manager
Lian-Chang is a global footwear materials supplier. Founded in 2002 by Taiwan’ s Lian Chang International Co, the company specialises in fabrics for footwear, industrial applications, garments, bags, and the medical industry along with different kinds of foam, ethylene-vinyl acetate( EVA), and thermoplastic polyurethane( TPU)-impermeable membrane for cementing. The company’ s factory manager DAVID LIN and sales manager ERIC
HUANG talk about the benefits of Kornit Digital’ s digital printing solutions, the market for footwear fabrics, and the textile industry in Vietnam, where it has set up a big production base in 2017 to better serve customers in southeast Asia.
What is the size of the market for footwear fabrics and industrial fabrics? How do you see the market for footwear fabrics and industrial fabrics growing in the next 5 years domestically and globally? Eric Huang: The annual growth of Vietnam’ s textile industry is 8 per cent. Despite last year ' s global trade, overall performance did not improve, however, the Vietnamese garment and footwear exports to the major markets remained stable. The exports to the US grew 12.95 per cent, to the EU grew 5.96 per cent, exports to Japan grew 7.95 per cent, and to South Korea grew 8.77 per cent. It is estimated that the textile and clothing exports from Vietnam will exceed $ 40 billion by 2020. We anticipate that the free trade agreements, which are being negotiated, will bring a lot of business opportunities in the textile and clothing industry in Vietnam in the future.
The‘ rules of origin’ in agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership( TPP) are a challenge for the Vietnamese textile and garment supply chain. Although vertical integration of upstream cloth and textile factory exists, there is difficulty in coping with the huge processing requirements, fabrics, fibres and dyes remains. Hence, we must rely on imports. Taiwan is one of the major sources of raw material for Vietnam. Vietnam is currently a major shoe manufacturing country in the world. Taiwan-funded shoe factories account for more than 60 per cent of all shoe factories in Vietnam, which is not yet perfectly prepared to meet the demands of the global footwear market.
What are the various types of machines that you use? What types of fabrics do you manufacture? David Lin: Our company has advanced laminating machines such as strong glue machine, TPU film laminating machine, foam machine, and other production equipments. In 2010, we brought in the advanced moisture polyurethane( PUR) reflect hot melt composite machine, with the industry’ s best technical talent and a strong distribution system.
Our company offers all kinds of fabrics for shoes— mesh, sandwiches, nylon fabric, weaving, jacquard fabrics, lycal, jersey, velvet, BK cloth, grid cloth and microfibre; shoe accessories, such as EVA, high foam, RB material, sponge, foam, latex, SBR and PE foam; a variety of plastic glue, such as SBR, EVA laminating,