Textile makers resort to synthetic yarn

The textile manufacturers have increased the usage of synthetic yarn following high cotton prices in the manufacturing purpose over the last one year.

“The increase is so much that the ratio of synthetic yarn blended with cotton for the textile manufacturing process has just been reversed two years back. In the blended variety of textile the blend ratio used to be 60 per cent cotton and 40 per cent synthetic yarn. Now, it is 60-65 per cent synthetic yarn blended with 35-40 per cent cotton. The reason for the increased use of synthetic yarn is the limited availability of cotton, cheaper price of synthetic yarn compared to cotton and easy processing of synthetic fibre”, said C Bose, president, Mumbai unit of Textile Association of India .

Pravinbhai Patel of Texaco Synthetics puts the ratio at 67 (synthetic yarn) and 33 for cotton and added that over the one year the ratio has reversed owing to the fact that cotton crop is less.

Rising demand for synthetic textile has also prompted few to trigger a change in the mix of cotton and synthetic fibre in the textile manufacturing process.

“The present mixture in our total textiles production is 70 per cent cotton and the remaining 30 per cent is polyester(synthetic), but seeing the rising demand for polyester demand for synthetic textile we plan on changing the ratio to 50 per cent cotton and 50 per cent polyester”, Alok Industries, chief financial officer, Sunil Khandelwal said.

While cotton prices have more than doubled in the last one year as reflected from the quotes on commodity exchanges , rise in synthetic yarn prices have a lot of room to match up with cotton.

Currently, cotton is available at Rs59,438 a candy(1 candy is 356 kg) as against Rs27,160 a year back.

However, yarn dealers said synthetic yarn prices were ruling rangebound till November last year, but since then the prices have jumped Rs20-30 a kg across all varieties like polyester, viscose, etc.

Company officials said rise in synthetic yarn is much slower compared to cotton. Second, processing of yarn is easy and demand for variety of textile for which synthetic yarn is used will always be there, he, however, insisted that the cotton demand will continue for specific purposes and geography.”

Undergarments in tropical countries will always be preferred in cotton while blended textile will be used for outer garments, especially for the fashion conscious population with high disposable income, said Pravin bhai Patel of Texaco.

Demand for cotton is also unlikely to come down since the alternative raw material synthetic yarn is also getting costlier with the rising crude oil prices. The shift began couple of months ago when crude oil prices were lower. The prices of synthetic yarns have gone up 25 per cent post diwali, said yarn dealers.

(Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/textile-makers-resort-to-synthetic-yarn/427649/)