Life Cycle Analysis of Textile Clusters: The Example of Chinese Textile Enterprises in Zhejiang Province

Abstract

As modern economy develops, the subjects of market competition are shifting from competition among individual enterprises to production and sales chains of enterprises and other forms of sustainable network interaction. Currently, more significant competition is manifested at the level of industrial clusters. The aim of this article is to study the model of the life cycle of textile industry clusters. The author examines the main schools of the theory of the life cycle of industrial clusters and chooses the theory of five stages of the life cycle of industrial clusters proposed by T. Andersson as the theoretical basis for this article. The textile industry cluster in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, where the largest number of textile enterprises in China is concentrated, was chosen as the object of research. Using the method of identifying the location coefficient based on the public databases of the Chinese Bureau of Statistics and the Bureau of Statistics of Zhejiang Province from 2002 to 2022 to determine the textile industry clusters in Zhejiang Province, the author found that the results calculated by the method of identifying the location coefficient correspond exactly to the five-stage development model of the Andersson cluster. From 2017 to 2020, the development of industrial clusters entered the stage of transformation, and the pace of development slowed down. Facing the risk of recession, with the help of external forces such as government support for industrial policy and internal forces such as technological and market innovations, the textile industry cluster in Zhejiang Province successfully transformed and entered a new life cycle.