China Cotton Textile Association

Rayon yarn capacity is expanding fast in recent two years and some changes have emerged among increasingly intense competition as the flexibility of yarn consumption and prices has greatly improved.

Take representative counts (10S and 30S) of open-end yarn for instance, the steady price spread of 2000yuan/mt in the past quickly narrowed to around 1000yuan/mt in the fourth quarter of 2017 because coarse yarn was steadily applied in low-end apparels and home textiles. Fine-count yarn sales had been dreary though spinners kept cutting prices.

It is similar in vortex-spun yarn market. MVSR30S as the major specification showed stable appearance while high-count yarn (MVSR40S) mills mostly cut production amid weak prices and sales.

However, vortex-spun yarn could partially replace ring-spun yarn. Since the second half year of 2017, MVSR30S had been 500-1000yuan/mt lower than ring-spun R30S, then some downstream plants in Zhejiang and Jiangsu substitute part of ring-spun yarn by vortex-spun yarn to control cost. Therefore, the inventory burden of vortex-spun yarn mills could be alleviated, whereas ring-spun yarn sales and prices were suppressed.

Spinners now adopt increasingly flexible operation to respond to market changes under the influence of order, price and inventory, like increasing the proportion of blended yarn and differential yarn. Similar situation is expected to emerge in 2018.