Hechi: China's new silk capital

Hechi, with a history of more than 470 years of sericulture, enjoys the title of "China's new silk capital".

The city's existing mulberry orchard area is 950,000 (63,333 hectares), ranking first among China's prefecture-level cities for 17 consecutive years. Hechi produces 160,000 metric tons of silkworm cocoons, accounting for about 25 percent of the country and 23 percent of the global output. The city produces 5,978 tons of white silk, accounting for more than 15 percent of the national total, which has seen it rank first in the country for 11 straight years.

Jialian is one of the first silk enterprises to have settled in Hechi. After 20 years of development, it has become a new benchmark for the integration and development of the whole industrial chain of mulberry planting and silkworm rearing, silk processing, and cultural creativity. Its clothes, home textile sets, silk facial mask, health-related and other products have been exported to the United States, Japan, India and other countries.

The 2022 China Silk Conference and the 2nd China sericulture and silk industry high-quality development conference were both held in Yizhou district of Hechi on Oct 25. These served as exchange platforms for silk industry experts and enterprises.

At Dacun Zhongzhi Agricultural Technology, An Hui and his team have relied on a big data smart platform to improve the survival rate of silkworms by 20 percent, greatly improving the efficiency of traditional silkworm-rearing methods used by local farmers.

This year, Hechi has introduced four major sericulture and silk projects with a total investment of 9.3 billion yuan ($1.3 billion). Their completion will fill in the gaps of white refining, dyeing, and printing technology in Guangxi's silk industry chain, and help the sustainable development of Hechi's sericulture and silk industry.