On June 7, 2023, Sun Ruizhe, President of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, met with Ms. Linda Kromjong, President of the Global Trade Association (amfori) and her delegation, and held meetings and exchanges with the delegation. Yan Yan, Director of the Office for Social Responsibility of CNTAC, and Ms. Zhou Zhuoying, Director of the Asia Pacific region of amfori, attended the meeting.
 
President Sun introduced to the other party the development trends of China's textile industry in recent years and the foreign cooperation and exchanges carried out by the China National Textile and Apparel Council at the international supply chain level. He expressed his hope to work with all stakeholders in the international supply chain to promote sustainable development of the supply chain on the basis of openness, mutual trust, and cooperation. He pointed out that the most important stakeholders of amfori, strengthening cooperation with the China National Textile and Apparel Council, can fully leverage their respective advantages and jointly promote the healthy development of the textile supply chain.
 
Ms. Kromjong is very grateful for President Sun's warm welcome and expressed that President Sun's frank introduction and interpretation have been important in guiding amfori's future work. Ms. Kromjong introduced the latest situation of amfori to President Sun, stating that both sides will jointly strengthen cooperation based on the memorandum of understanding to build a strong international textile supply chain.

 

The cooperation between China National Textile and Apparel Council and amfori in the field of corporate social responsibility has been ongoing for over a decade. In 2007, the two sides signed a memorandum of cooperation in Beijing on joint training, mutual recognition of systems, and regular dialogue, the first social responsibility cooperation agreement at the level of business associations between China and Europe. In 2018, both parties continued to sign a memorandum of cooperation to comprehensively enhance their cooperation in various fields, including conducting joint training or factory improvement projects in areas of common concern to both parties' systems, achieving two-way docking of training needs and resources, and collaborating to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and impact of training and improvement projects; Based on the characteristics of both parties' systems and membership composition, support each other in promoting each other's standard system in the supply chain, in order to achieve full coverage of the social responsibility standard system in the entire textile and clothing industry supply chain; Establish a social responsibility performance data exchange platform and experience exchange mechanism for member enterprises on both sides, promote dialogue among stakeholders in the supply chain, and promote the positive impact of social responsibility data on business decisions of all parties in the supply chain.
 
Through more than ten years of cooperation, the China National Textile and Apparel Council and amfori have carried out fruitful cooperation and attempts in the fields of supply chain cooperation training, integration of social responsibility standards, and advocating free trade. Many of these cooperation attempts have set a precedent in the field of social responsibility in the international textile and clothing supply chain.