What is sustainable for textile raw materials?

Mao Kailin, director of the China International Cotton Association, said with emotion that "the era of high cotton prices" cannot be avoided.

Various textile raw materials led by cotton have recently suffered a mad drastic fall. Chemical fiber, cotton spinning companies, spinning mills, weaving mills, and garment companies have not completed their eggs in the entire industry chain. On the one hand, people in the industry are struggling to think about the possible causes of the fierce fluctuations in textile raw materials, and after many failures they still try to make predictions on the market outlook. On the other hand, they are more aware of the various problems that have arisen in the supply of textile raw materials.

Various textile raw materials led by cotton have recently suffered a mad drastic fall. Chemical fiber, cotton spinning companies, spinning mills, weaving mills, and garment companies have not completed their eggs in the entire industry chain. On the one hand, people in the industry are struggling to think about the various possible reasons for the fierce fluctuations in textile raw materials. After many failures, they still try to make predictions on the market outlook. On the other hand, they are more aware of the various problems that have arisen in the supply of textile raw materials. Long-term sustainable development. As a result, the first "China Textile Raw Material Market Forum" came into being.

Balanced supply and demand of cotton in the past two years

Although the pattern of textile raw materials has never been static, the situation in recent years has attracted more attention.

Natural fibers based on cotton, and chemical fibers based on polyester, viscose, etc., have long formed the most important raw material pattern for the textile and apparel industry. After natural fibers and chemical fiber have undergone this process of elimination, they have basically owned half of the country. Originally, with the development of economy and the progress of society, more and more people have begun to “return to reality” and prefer to use relatively comfortable and natural cotton and other natural fiber products. However, the sudden arrival of the Khmer price was unprepared, and the remark that "the era of low cotton prices is gone forever," and "cotton may only be used in high-end products," gradually gained widespread recognition among experts in the industry.

Gao Fang, executive vice president of the Cotton Association of China, introduced the 2010/2011 cotton year in this forum. According to forecast, the domestic cotton production in the year will be about 6.65 million tons, and the national cotton will be thrown and stored at 1 million tons. It is estimated that it will import 3 million tons (as of April this year, it has imported 1.95 million tons), and the total amount of resources is about 10.65 million tons; yarn production is expected. It reached 27 million tons (up to 18.13 million tons as of April) and total consumption will reach 10.6 million tons. Supply and demand are in a tight balance. In addition, at present, the national cotton turnover stock is around 1.25 million tons, and the sales schedule is about 90%. The remaining cotton is basically concentrated in the hands of farmers in the Yellow River Basin.

As an important source of high-quality cotton production and a major import source of domestic cotton, cotton cultivation in the United States is not optimistic. According to Mao Kailin, director of the China International Cotton Association in China, the current drought in Texas is not conducive to cotton growth. At the same time, the prices of corn and soybeans in the United States are higher than those of cotton, making the willingness of US cotton farmers to continue to decline. According to the forecast of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the world cotton production in 2010/2011 is about 1.153 million bales (about 25.02 million tons), and the consumption is 1.166 million bales (about 25.3 million tons); the world cotton production in 2011/2012 is slightly It grew by about 12.75 million bales (about 27.67 million tons) and consumed about 1.2 million bales (about 26.04 million tons). In the past two years, the world cotton supply and demand situation is also in a tight balance.

Cotton becomes more expensive and less productive, and the production of natural fibers such as wool, hemp, and silk is very limited and unlikely to increase substantially. This means that the raw material structure of the textile industry will undergo major changes. In theory, chemical fiber will occupy an increasing proportion.

The viscose material bottleneck is very prominent

Since chemical fiber is the biggest growth point for textile raw materials in the future, can we not vigorously develop chemical fiber? Things are obviously not that simple. Judging from the current situation, although polyester-based chemical fiber varieties are on the path of “super-imitation cotton,” the varieties that really have the comfort characteristics of cotton are viscose fibers. Therefore, the development space of viscose fiber is very obvious. But what's worse, the shortage of viscose raw materials has become a bottleneck that restricts the development of the industry.

Wang Xiaobo, director of the Technical Center of Zhejiang Fulida Co., Ltd., analyzed in detail the use of viscose raw materials in China. More than 90% of the domestic viscose industry originally used cotton pulp as raw materials. These pulp mills are relatively scattered, with small quantities and many small scales, and they have no control over raw materials and quality is difficult to guarantee. After 2000, the domestic viscose fiber production capacity continued to expand, but cotton pulp was restricted by limited resources of cotton linters and it was difficult to expand production on a large scale. The output was only 600,000 tons to 700,000 tons. Therefore, a large amount of wood imported from abroad was imported. Pulp. By 2010, the proportion of domestic wood pulp has exceeded 60% of cotton pulp. The dependence on wood pulp imports remains high, and pricing power is in the hands of foreign companies.

Especially in the case of severe fluctuations in raw materials in recent few days, viscose fiber companies have been extremely difficult to manage. At present, nearly 80% of the entire industry is in a loss-making state, and only a few enterprises with excellent raw material procurement strategies have a slight profit. According to the reporter, viscose fiber companies have to reduce costs by changing paper pulp (making paper pulp into dissolving pulp) in order to survive. At present, companies that use cotton pulp, wood pulp, pulp and bamboo pulp as raw materials have large differences in cost and have a greater impact on quality.

Chen Jiumei, director of China market for the world-renowned consulting firm PCI Corporation, also believes that almost all dissolving wood pulp in the world is exported to China. Increasing prices and tight supply of dissolving pulp have brought tremendous pressure on Chinese viscose fiber companies. . Although there are many sources, there will be a large amount of new dissolving pulp production capacity from 2011 to 2012, including Chenming Paper's acquisition of Shandong Hailong, Sun Paper, Fujian Nanping Paper and other investment dissolving pulp, but Chen Jiumei is not optimistic. Because these companies also face problems with wood supply and product quality. However, she still stated that Austrian Lenzing predicted that the supply gap of 10 million tons of fiber in the world by 2020 will be mainly replaced by viscose fiber.

Various measures to ensure stable supply

"The supply of raw materials is the basis for the development of the textile industry. It is necessary to increase the level of development of the chemical fiber industry, strengthen the construction of natural fiber production bases such as cotton, enrich raw material supply channels, optimize the structure of raw materials, and ensure the supply of raw materials," said Xu Kunyuan, vice president of China Textile Industry Association. During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and a longer period of time, measures must be taken to ensure the sustainable development of textile raw materials. In particular, he emphasized the need to strengthen the R&D and application of biomass fibers; to strengthen the recycling of resources and increase the share of textile regenerated fibers in the total fiber processing in 2015 to 15%.

As a kind of fiber with Chinese characteristics, bamboo pulp fiber has become an important type of viscose fiber under the efforts of the Tianzhu Fiber Industry Alliance for five years. Bamboo pulp has played an important role in making up for the shortage of viscose raw materials. At the forum, Li Zhenfeng, deputy chief engineer of Hebei Jixi Chemical Fiber Co., Ltd., elaborated the "second five" development plan for the Tianzhu industry during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period: realizing China's bamboo fiber development, weather, and pattern. He specifically explained that, by 2015, the total output of bamboo fiber will reach 250,000 tons/year, including many species such as fine dendrobium, functional and bamboo, high-strength Tianzhu and Tianzhu filament, each with specific production plans. At the same time, the product application structure is 65% for garments, 30% for home textiles, and 5% for industry. The number of members in Tianzhu League will reach 100. At present, Anhui Tianzhu Fiber Base and Taiwan's high-strength fiber base have been completed and put into production. In 2015, the pattern of common development in Hebei, Jilin, Shandong, Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui, Fujian, and Yunnan will be realized.

Fu Baozong, a research fellow at the Industrial Development Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, concluded from the data that the current domestic garment export growth is fastest, followed by textile exports, and the slowest is raw material exports, indicating that as raw material prices and processing costs increase, the industry tends to process The finished product is mainly traded. He also hoped that the industry would consider: When the domestic supply situation of raw materials is becoming severe, whether products that are produced through high-cost imports and at the cost of energy and environment should be considered to meet more domestic needs?

"The goal of a powerful chemical fiber country is the most promising." Zheng Junlin, secretary-general of the China Chemical Fiber Industry Association, cited the opinions of people in the industry to express his hopes for a bright future for chemical fiber. However, he also reminded that the development and application of chemical fiber products must be cautious. It is imperative to establish various systems that are compatible with them, and you must not take the old path of thermal underwear fibers.