Blending man-made, cotton fibre

Experts urge govt to facilitate industry

Friday, April 18, 2008
LAHORE: Pakistan’s failure to blend more man-made fibre with cotton fibre is increasingly affecting the ability of its industry to produce innovative textile products, restricting its reach to less than 40 per cent of the global market.

The News has found that Pakistan’s textile industry uses 80 per cent cotton and 20 per cent man-made fibre in its production. However, the world is increasingly moving towards blending cotton with man-made fibre in the ratio of 60.6 per cent fibre and 39.4 per cent cotton. Globally, cotton use is declining while in Pakistan it remains static and high.

The low use of man-made fibre by the local industry is said to be the result of flawed policy of the government which provided duty protection to a local manufacturer of polyester fibre for a long time under a sovereign guarantee. The government still continues to provide protection to local polyester fibre and yarn producers that discourages the industry from producing cost-effective blended products according to global demand.

The US has included numerous textile products, made through cotton and fibre blending, in the category of duty-free imports, which it is likely to allow from the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in Pakistan.

Pakistani manufacturers simply have no expertise in producing these products. The US, on the other hand, in a proposal submitted to the Congress has not included most of the textile items produced from 100 per cent cotton where Pakistan has some expertise.

Textile experts have appealed to the government to take notice of this situation and facilitate the industry in adopting the mixture of cotton and non-cotton fibre.

Preliminary data available with global cotton researchers suggests that world textile fibre consumption increased by 4.8 per cent to a record 67.7 million tonnes in 2007.

World cotton consumption also expanded by 3.8 per cent to a record 26.9 million tonnes in the same year, marking the ninth year of continuous expansion but the second year of a decreasing rate of growth.

Initial figures suggest that world demand for non-cotton fibres increased by 5.4 per cent in 2007, compared to 3.8 per cent in 2006, to 40.7 million tonnes. Thus, world non-cotton fibre consumption expanded at a higher rate than cotton consumption in 2007 and, consequently, the market’s share of cotton decreased from 40.2 per cent in 2006 to 39.8 per cent in 2007.

In order to forecast possible consumption trends for cotton and non-cotton textile fibres for 2008 and 2009, different potential scenarios on global economic expansion, and cotton and polyester prices were simulated. Simulation results suggest: (a) textile fibre consumption will continue to expand in 2008 and 2009, (b) cotton consumption will increase slightly in 2008 but will decline or remain stagnant in 2009, and © cotton’s share in the world textile market will decline.

Textile fibre consumption forecasts range from 69.8 million tonnes to 70.5 million tonnes for 2008 and from 72 million tonnes to 73.7 million tonnes for 2009. Cotton consumption forecasts range from 27.2 million tonnes to 27.4 million tonnes for 2008 and from 27.1 million tonnes to 27.5 million tonnes for 2009.

The forecasts for the share of cotton in world fibre consumption range from 38.9 per cent to 39 per cent for 2008 and from 37.2 per cent to 37.7 per cent for 2009.—MA

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=107398