(Yicai Global) April 13 -- A Chinese government initiative to improve safety in the workplace is “noble” and Westex is happy to participate, Raj Batlaw, Asian sales director at the US flame-resistant and arc-rated fabrics maker, said in an interview with Yicai Global at the China International Occupational Safety and Health Goods Expo held from April 13 to 15.

The Chinese government recently updated a number of national personal protective equipment standards to mandatory from recommendatory.

“New PPE standards are now in place, and testing bodies and regulatory systems are evolving,” said Doreen Yin, senior Asia-Pacific marketing manager at Westex's parent firm Milliken. “Westex wants to use its experience and technology in fire-resistant fabrics to insinuate their proper use in China and help the country's PPE industry to grow instead of simply doing business.”

Extracts from the interview with Batlaw are below.

Yicai Global: What products and innovative solutions do you bring to the CIOSH? 

Raj Batlaw: We are basically addressing a couple of workplace hazards. Hazards that are related to fire or flame, so workplace hazards could come from industries using low flashpoint liquids or gases, so they catch fire very easily, or of course, using electrical equipment. So those have flame-related hazards. What we do is make fabrics that protect against both of those hazards. 

Customers like to have different properties. There may be some customers who like to have a very strong strength of the fabric. Or there are other customers who may prefer to have better protection, they compromise everything else for protection. Then there are still other customers who prefer some comfort in the fabric. So we make all different types of fabrics.

We offer customized solutions. The customer chooses exactly what they want. And China is a pretty big country, so you have all different types of weather. You can go from hot and humid to extreme cold. The fabrics must perform in all of those elements.

YG: What is the role of the Chinese market for Westex? 

RB: We’ve been studying the market for a long time, and China is a very vast industrial market, so there are all types of industries. You’ve got the oil and gas industry, petrochemical industry, chemical industry, with the opening of China and the government's initiative to make sure that the people are safe in their work environment.

It’s a great initiative, and we’re happy to participate in that. We believe that it’s a noble initiative in this vast industry, and we will help deliver solutions.

The market is going to be the largest market in the world and will need protection, and all of those millions and millions of people that are working in that industry will require protection and will count on us to deliver that protection. So we are very happy to participate in that. We’re just enabling the standard that the government has put in place.

YG: How about your supply chain? Do you manufacture and sell in China? 

RB: Our strategy is ‘local for local use,’ which essentially means starting from product development to product manufacturing to actually doing the education in terms of proper use of the product. All of that is done locally. Our entire supply chain is local.

YG: Have you encountered difficulties with the cost of materials surging?

RB: Definitely, inflation has been there, and the supply chain was disrupted. No doubt about it. But it was a challenge, and we met that challenge. What we can see is that things are starting to slowly move back to normal. Inflation has started to come down a little bit. The supply chains are more open now, so we can readily get the raw materials that we need. And production is fully open. So we are able to produce the product here as well. It's on its way to recovery and making very good progress.

We have been talking to a lot of companies that are excited to put these safety practices in place. Just about anybody you talk to, this is an initiative that they like because it is something that you are doing that is going to be good for a fellow human being. I see a lot of excitement in the industry, and we are excited to participate. 

The rest of the market is actually not doing too badly. In fact, it is doing better than last year. Although that is contrary to what most people think because there is a lot of talk about slow down and recession coming, but we have not seen that. The market has been good, outside of China also. 

YG: What do you think of the new industry standards in China? 

RB: Prior to this development, we used to have our products comply with the US standards, with the European standards, with the Canadian standards, with the Australian standards. Those were the ones that were already in place. Now we have the standard here in China.

The standard here in China is, in a lot of respects, a little bit tougher to achieve than the US and European standards. It is a very good thing that we are trying to raise the bar on performance.

Because the standards are a little bit higher and more challenging to achieve, it stretches us a little bit, which is a good thing, and we have our R&D team working on it. We were not been able to do much in the last three years, but as things have opened up, and all throughout those last three years, out people have been working in the lab, following all the protocols. Our development never stopped, and it has accelerated as things have opened up.

Editor: Martin Kadiev