World Fibre Trends in Demand and Supply 2008

The “World Fibre – Trends in Demand and Supply” is the Fourth compendium from YarnsandFibers present-ing the demand and supply trends in manmade fiber industry. The compilation covers all major fibre producing countries accounting for 85% of global production and consumption. Time series on trends from 1990 to 2007 on production, imports, exports and apparent consumption is presented country-wise for 13 countries includ-ing all major Asian countries, USA and West Europe.

In this Report we have assesses the impact of the expiry of the MFA and ATC and the scenario post-WTO in global manmade fibre/filament industry and natural fibres, particularly cotton, and how each country prepared and positioned itself in the global market. The analysis assesses the positions of fibres/filaments industry and their producers and consumers as events unfolded. Like in case of MFA, the period under consideration is pre-1995, for ATC it is 1995 to 2004 and post-WTO it is 2005 to 2007.

Highlights

Global fibers/filament  production in 2007 touched 68,700 thousand tons. Of these, 40% were natural fibres  and rest manmade fibres . Compared to previous year, fibers production in 2007 was up 6%, repeating the previous year’s growth. The growth would had been higher had the natural fibre production growth rate was positive this year. Natural fibre production declined 1.3% in 2007 following a bumper 2006 year of production. Cotton production declined 1.2% in 2007 as area coverage under the crop decreased 4.3% to 33.2 million hectares from 34.7 million hectares in 2006. Chemical fibers also grew handsomely by 11% in 2004, the second highest growth since 1997. Among manmade fibre/filament, production polyester staple and filament and viscose staple fibre increased by 12-14%.

Natural fibres have been rapidly losing their share in all fibres supply to manmade segment. In 1990, natural fibres accounted for almost 60% of global fibre supplies. This came down to 54% in 1995 when Agreement of Textiles and Clothing was adopted. It fell further to 45% in 2004 with the end of ATC and advent of WTO from 1 January 2005. With output shrinking in 2007, their share declined further to just over 40%.

Manmade fibres now account for over 60% of all fibres produced globally, dominated by polyester. During the ATC period (1994 to 2004), MMF production increased at an annual rate of growth of 6.6%. Of this, a major thrust was in polyester segment, which increased 10.8% per annum in case of polyester filament yarn and by 7.5% a year in case of polyester staple fibre. While acrylic staple fibre, nylon and viscose staple fibre recorded positive growth rates, that of viscose filament yarn and acetate fibre was negative. Post WTO (2005-2007), polyester production continued to grow at the same rate, acrylic, nylon VFY and acetate fibre output declined. VSF production moved faster during this period by 7.4% per annum.