China Urges Silk Enterprises to Upgrade TechnologyChina is urging state-owned silk enterprises to upgrade their reeling machines and undertake innovation in techniques, designs and colors.Twenty-nine programs will be carried out in the enterprises for technical innovations with 1.54 billion yuan in subsidized loans, according to a report of Beijing Review. China will reduce silk industry's production by one-third this year in an effort to improve the sector's economic returns. Twenty-four state-owned silk enterprises will go bankrupt, and banks will be saddled with writing off 1.36 billion yuan in bad debts. State-owned silk reeling factories will get help to ease their social burdens and to lower their debt-to-equity ratios, according to the State Textile Industry Administration. Seventeen silk enterprises will be allowed to launch debt-to- equity swaps in 2000, and this involves 2.02 billion yuan in capital. The silk sector made 320 million yuan of profits during the first 11 months of 1999 after years of government efforts to reform the industry. But about 65 percent of the state-owned silk enterprises are losing money. China's silk exports totaled 2.8 billion U.S. dollars last year, as against 3.5 billion dollars in 1993. |
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