Business

Global Spinning Capacity Remains Stable, Consumption Down: ITMF

The International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) has published the International Textile Industry Statistics (ITIS) on productive capacity and raw material consumption in the short-staple organised spinning mill sector in virtually all textile-producing countries in the world. The global number of installed short-staple spindles remained stable in 2020 at 221 million units. The number of installed open-end rotors slightly decreased from 7.4 million in 2019 to 7.2 million in 2020. The decreasing trends observed in both segments in previous years (mainly due to scrapping of outdated machinery in China) seem to have come to an end. The tendencies observed in other regions are stable. The number of installed airjet spindles increased in 2020 in all regions except in Europe. The substitution between shuttle and shuttleless looms continued in 2020 but the number of installed shuttleless looms has shrunk for the first time from 1.68 million in 2019 to 1.64 in 2020. Total raw material consumption in the short-staple organised sector has sharply decreased from 46 million tons in 2019 to 41 million tons in 2020. Consumption of raw cotton, synthetic, and cellulosic short-staple fibres decreased by 12%, 14%, and 9%, respectively. This effect mainly reflects the reduced levels of production during the Covid-19 pandemic.