Added Value of the Sporting Goods Industry in China Surpassed 300 Billion Yuan

　　2017 China Sporting Goods Industry Annual Summit, themed "upgrading to drive new growth" was held in Shanghai on May 22.Representatives from all parties inside and outside the industry jointly explored new ideas for the transformation and upgrading of the sporting goods industry via the forum.

　　"Consumers in the new era focus more on user experience, rather than only pay for different products. At the same time, they have stronger health awareness. So, new requirements are further extended, which need enterprises to develop more innovative products that cater to user experience."Stefanie·Burkert, vice president of the WFSGI stressed that Chinese compatriots needed to pay closer attention to the important role of technological innovation in market competition.

　　Li Ning, president of Li-Ning Company, expressed that the current demand for sport consumption in China was being extended from material consumption to the participation and spectator consumption. According to the speech of Li Ning, the latest data revealed by the National Bureau of Statistics show that about 34% people in China regularly participated in physical exercise in 2016, and the number of participants reached 334 million."Nowadays, more and more people regard sports as a part of life and socializing. More and more people participate in sports such as running, swimming, basketball, badminton, and table tennis, which bring larger development space for sports and greater demands for the sporting goods industry."

　　At the forum, Li Hua, Chairman of CSGF, delivers a keynote speech on behalf of CSGF. In his speech, he pointed out that the overall development of China's sporting goods industry is in good shape. Especially, the new impetus elicited by industry upgrading will become the important driver for sustainable growth of the industry. This also determines that the development path of the sporting goods industry in the "new golden decade" will be significantly different from the past, which requires that all parties have a more keen strategic insight, focus on advanced manufacturing and service, and authentically take advantage of this upgrading opportunity to achieve leapfrog development.

　　"According to key data of the industry in the past year, the key data of China's sporting goods industry witnesses the 'upgrading' process: Firstly, the overall growth of the industry is fast and the added value surpasses 300 billion yuan. The value of China's sporting goods industry in 2006 (manufacturing and sales of sportswear, sports shoes, sport equipment, and related sport products) reached 307.7 billion Yuan, with a growth rate of 11.65%. The industry maintains double-digit growth for consecutive three years. Secondly, the sales income has increased significantly, and the per capita consumption of sporting goods exceeds 100 yuan.China's sporting goods industry achieved sales revenue of 147.2 billion yuan in 2016, with a year-on-year growth of more than 10%. Thirdly, the import & export value shows negative growth for consecutive two years. The total import and export value of China's sporting goods industry was US$17.022 billion in 2016, with a year-on-year decrease of 16.94%. A trade surplus of US$15.307 billion was achieved, with a decrease of 17.65%."

　　In Li Hua's opinion, exploring the impetus for endogenous growth is a key to the upgrading and new development of China's sporting goods. In addition, he has interpreted new opportunities for China's sporting goods market from multiple aspects, including playing the craftsman spirit, promoting standardization work, paying attention to new retails, and seizing the opportunity of sport consumption upgrading.

　　"Although the scale of Chinese sporting goods is large, we need to see that they are mostly still in the middle and low grade. Chinese sport brands are still rare in high precision equipment for competitive sports and benchmark products for mass fitness. Even the equipment and facilities for many of our Olympic gold medal events are monopolized by foreign brands on a large scale. With the rapid increase in labor costs, higher requirements will be posed for product design, technology R&D, and brand building, which are also the weakness of previous local sporting goods."Li Hua also said that it was rejoicing that more and more Chinese sport brands had been speeding up the transformation and upgrading, and had made many new achievements in independent innovation, focused market segment, and intelligent manufacturing. He hopes that, in the process of upgrading to a sporting goods manufacturing power, more enterprises would concentrate on the craftsman spirit, strive to enhance "internal strength", and truly make new breakthroughs in core competitive edge.