On October 26, 2025, the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Leather Industry Professional Committee of the China Leather Industry Association was held in Wuji County, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. At this annual meeting, the "Initiative on Resisting 'Involution' Competition and Promoting High-Quality Development of the Leather Industry" was officially released. Industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and representatives from the entire industry chain witnessed this important moment of consensus building within the industry, and relevant association leaders read the initiative aloud.
The initiative clarifies that the leather industry uses raw hides, a byproduct of animal husbandry, as raw materials to produce environmentally friendly, comfortable, and durable high-quality natural leather products. This effectively increases the added value of animal husbandry while avoiding environmental pollution and carbon emissions from animal hide waste, making it a green industry that aligns with the circular economy concept and the "dual-carbon" strategy. As a fundamental and core link in the leather industry, the high-quality development of the leather industry is directly related to the healthy and sustainable operation of the entire industry and also affects consumer trust in high-quality leather products.
The initiative directly addresses prominent issues in the industry: In recent years, the phenomenon of disorderly low-price competition and the proliferation of low-quality products caused by "involution" has not only severely squeezed the reasonable profit margins of enterprises and hindered the process of technological innovation and quality upgrading, but also damaged the overall market image of leather products and shaken the foundation for the long-term development of the industry. To implement the guiding spirit of the state in promoting high-quality development and breaking the industry's "involution," the China Leather Industry Association, together with its industry colleagues, issued three initiatives:
First, anchoring to policy direction and consolidating the foundation for high-quality development. Fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its subsequent plenary sessions, as well as the Central Economic Work Conference; deeply understand the requirement of "resolutely opposing unfair competition and promoting the healthy development of the industry"; clearly recognize the short-term nature and harmfulness of "price wars" and "homogeneous competition"; and coordinate the promotion of high-quality development and high-level quality and safety to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth in the industry.
Second, resisting vicious competition and building a healthy market ecosystem. Adhering to the bottom line of business operations, we must consciously resist irrational internal friction at the expense of product quality and disregard for social responsibility, resolutely eliminate unfair competition such as malicious price wars, and promote the industry's transformation from "price competition" to "value competition," winning the market through quality improvement and experience optimization. We must establish and improve industry information sharing and communication mechanisms to reduce resource waste and jointly maintain a standardized and orderly market order and the overall interests of the industry.
Thirdly, we must strengthen innovation-driven development and enhance core competitiveness. Maintaining strategic focus, we must establish a collaborative development concept, actively promote the industry's digital and intelligent transformation, and leverage the collaborative advantages of the industrial chain and supply chain to improve production and operational efficiency. We must continuously increase investment in R&D and innovation, focusing on developing high-quality, personalized, fashionable, green, and functional leather products to enrich market supply categories and application scenarios. Through authoritative certifications such as the "Genuine Leather Mark Ecological Leather," we must promote the upgrading of the industrial chain and value chain to high-end levels and build a high-level competitive landscape.
The release of this initiative marks the official "show of force" by my country's leather industry in the face of "involutionary" competition, becoming an important milestone in the industry's consensus-building and transformation efforts. Industry insiders generally believe that the entire industry will take this initiative as an opportunity to refine and implement specific measures to combat "involution," consolidate development efforts, promote the sustainable and healthy development of the leather industry, and inject new momentum into the high-quality development of the leather industry.
