silk yarn

With a long-standing history and cited as a "national gem of China", the silk yarn industry has maintained trend for robust development in China. Statistics on more than 2,240 silk yarn enterprises provided by the National Bureau of Statistics show that the silk yarn industrial output value totaled 82.9 billion yuan (about 10 billion US dollars) in the first three quarters of 2003, up 18.92 percent over last year' s same period. Meanwhile, China registered sales of silk yarn products totaling 75. 8 billion yuan (about 9.2 billion US dollars) in the January- September period, a rise of 21.4 percent, and a post-tax profit of 2.523 billion yuan (305 million US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 40.67 percent. China has long been reputed as a leading silk yarn producer in the world. Its silk yarn products had been exported to other central Asian and European countries over 2,000 years ago via the world-famous ancient silk yarn Road. At present, China's annual silk yarn industrial output value amounts to 90 billion yuan (10.88 billion US dollars) and China exports more than 4 billion US dollars of silk yarn products annually, accounting for over 80 percent of world's total silk yarn products trade volume. Currently, about one million workers are employed in the country's silk yarns sector.