The United Arab Emirates is now becoming the world's leading centre for textile industry automation with the presence of about 150 apparel manufacturing companies in satellite cities around Sharjah and Dubai, according to an article on ctei.gov.cn.

Accounting for about 5.5 percent of the world's annual textile and clothing sales, the UAE has today become the world’s fourth largest trading centre of fashion and apparel, says the report.

The Gulf countries are gradually becoming the world’s leading textile manufacturing and trading centres due to good economic environment and fair trade practices, according to the report.

By 2016, the UAE will become the world’s leading high-end textile and garment re-export centre.

In 2011, the UAE had textile and apparel turnover of US$ 13 billion, which is growing at an annual compound growth rate of 9.9 percent, making it one of the world’s major textile and apparel markets.

The UAE has the world’s largest and most densely populated commercial centre, which marks the presence of a large number of world-class clothing brands. Moreover, domestic online apparel shopping is growing at a rapid pace.

One major feature of UAE’s textile industry is the high level of automation. Since labour is expensive in the country, the UAE began extensively using the advanced textile machinery of the Western countries, gradually replacing the output from the Chinese and Indian labour, which has laid a strong foundation for home textiles and technical textiles, the report says.

In recent years, the UAE Government has successfully persuaded domestic entrepreneurs to invest in automated textile industry, including in home textiles, car seats, tents and curtains.

The extensive use of advanced automation equipment has enabled UAE’s textile manufacturers to greatly reduce labour costs and thus increase their profits. In addition, it has also resulted in improvement in quality while decreasing the production time, which has increasingly won confidence of international customers.

Moreover, UAE’s textile and garment firms have steadily improved and upgraded their raw material storage, packing and transport facilities for large-scale operations.

No wonder then that the UAE textile and apparel products can now be seen in countries like Jordan and Kenya, as well as the United States.