Chemical fibers: Ushering in a large vision of fibers
Feb 14, 2019 ｜ by
Since 2017, the world economic has been recovering, and the domestic economy has been growing steadily and heading towards a new prospect, which has created a favorable market environment for China’s textile chemical fiber industry and supporting the sound development momentum of the whole textile industry. Nevertheless, volatile international situations, significant fluctuations of the oil price, exacerbation of Sino-US trade frictions and continuous depreciation of RMB have aggravated the industrial operation risks.
In the first three quarters of 2018, the chemical fiber industry demonstrated a favorable development with its economic efficiency outperforming that of the year before. Different subsidiary industries were further divided to form a widely-divided development pattern. The polyester and chinlon industry showed impressive performance, but the viscose, acrylic fiber and spandex industry had a hard time in operating. From October 2018, the chemical fiber industry had been faced with a growing downward pressure. After sudden rises followed sudden drops, but the industrial fundamentals were not significantly changed. In late November, the market situations resumed a stability.
From January to October 2018, the chemical fiber industry finished an output of 41.31 million tons, climbing by 8.32% compared with the year before. The operating income was 661 billion yuan, growing by 14.18% compared with the year before. 31.6 billion yuan of profits were actualized, which were higher than those of the year before by 18.9%. The profit margin of the main business reached 4.78%, which was 0.19% higher than that of the year before.
“In different periods of time, the market situations are usually relative, and the specific development conditions and the long-term development layout should be taken into consideration”, says Duan Xiaoping, Vice President of China National Textile and Apparel Council and President of China Chemical Fibers Association. Development of science and technology is a long-term process. To market demands, a short period of sectional fluctuations cannot fully represent the overall development trend of a field. The concept of the fiber large vision has been shaped, requiring a more scientific and professional judgment to get adapted to market changes.
Three-dimensional construction: Reinvigoration of the industrial new pattern through technological development
Built an innovational platform for promotion of common technology R&D: The New Vision Advanced Functional Fiber Innovation Center under the leadership of the China Chemical Fibers Association has gained the provincial recognition from Jiangsu Province and is now endeavoring to turn itself into a national-level innovation center for the manufacturing industry. The China Polylactic Acid Industrial Innovation Development Federation was set up. The establishment of all the above innovation platforms will further gather innovative and competitive resources of the industry to form coordinated development of downstream and upstream innovation, build an open, efficient and collaborative common technology R&D platform, and promote high-quality development of the chemical fiber industry.
Strengthened information communication to promote in-depth civilian-military integration of the chemical fiber industry: The Recommended Catalog of Fiber New Materials and Products for In-depth Civilian-Military Integration (2018) provided an important reference for industrial connection, information exchange, and project recommendation of civilian-military integration. The civilian-military integration key lab jointly built with the Beijing Institute of Fashion Industry has formed its construction plan, which can further promote civilian-military integration.
Issued the Chemical Fiber Open Textbooks and strengthened technological talent construction: The China Chemical Fiber Industrial Association has finished compilation of three books, including High-Performance Fibers and Applications, Biology-Base Fibers and Applications, and Chemical Fibers for Cyclic Reuse and Applications together with institutions of higher learning, backbone enterprises, and faculty teams to support the industrial development and technological progress, and to address the lack of practical textbooks. All this can provide intelligence support for innovation-driven development and improvement of talent development quality.
Organized academicians’ forums and chemical fiber technological conferences to advocate the technological information of chemical fibers: On June 22nd, 2018, the China Chemical Fiber Association and the China Academy of Engineering Light Textile Department jointly held the “Green Fiber Material and Green Manufacturing Technological Development High-Level Forum”. The high-level forum interpreted and implemented green development policies of the Party and the national government from multiple perspectives and a high starting point. The Academicians’ Forum also carried out the spirit of General Secretary Xi’s speech to promote green development of the chemical fiber industry represented by reuse of waste textile products as well as realization of the strategic objective of national green manufacturing.
In 2018, the China Chemical Fiber Technological Conference provided a new thinking perspective, expanded the new vision and advocated new achievements for intelligent manufacturing, technological innovation, product promotion, brand construction and green development of the chemical fiber industry based on the technological achievement display and themed on the “Fiber New Perspective — Intelligent Integration of Technology and Innovative Sharing of the Future”. On the conference, Duan Xiaoping, President of China Chemical Fibers Association gave a keynote speech on “Building a Superpower of Chemical Fibers: A Mid-term Assessment of China’s Chemical Fiber Development in the Mid-term of the 13th Five-Year Plan”, and analyzed the development status, existing problems and future development thinking of new fiber materials at an attempt to promote industrial technological progress and industrial upgrade.
Multipoint development: Green manufacturing achieving new progress
China has been acknowledged as the largest chemical fiber manufacturer and consumer, whose green development is closely linked to people’s livelihood. Against the backdrop, the green fiber logo certification has been a key link of China’s chemical fiber industry and even China’s textile industrial greening process, and can well reflect China’s responsibility as a chemical fiber manufacturer. In order to promote sustainable development, the cellulosic fiber industry established the green development alliance, and the “green fiber” project made steady progress.
The green fiber logo aims at advocating product’s green design, green material and green manufacturing. By promoting environmental protection and public health, it heads towards the dual objectives of corporate development and undertaking of social responsibilities. From 2015 to present, there have been around 21 enterprises joining the green fiber logo application. These enterprises all attached great importance to the green fiber logo and regarded it as one of the major direction for industrial transformation and upgrade. Their vigorous team construction, production and technology made great strides, and they committed themselves to realization of a green and sustainable full-life-cycle and laying a solid foundation for green development of enterprises and industry.
Duan Xiaoping pointed out that, in terms of green development, the chemical fiber industry should make efforts in the following aspects:
l Emphasizing on improving green development of the chemical fiber industrial green manufacturing service platform;
l Intensifying the green fiber logo certification and certification advertising, manufacturing the three-year action plan for the green fiber certification, increasing the percentage of enterprises with green fiber certification in the chemical fiber industry, and driving the green development of the chemical fiber industry and the textile full-industrial chain;
l Keeping on strengthening the support and guidance of Lvyu Fund to the new technology and new process of green manufacturing, building a full-life cycle basic database for chemical fiber products and providing integrated solution plans for green manufacturing;
l Actively getting involved in the green manufacturing project of the Ministry of Industry and Information of the People’s Republic of China, and increasing the quantity of green products, green plants and green industrial chains for the chemical fiber industry;
l Vigorously developing the green design capacity of chemical fiber products, enhancing applications of key technologies to chemical fiber green design, sharping enterprises’ awareness of green development and green design capability, and promoting combination among green design, product innovative development and technological process improvement;
l Comprehensively lifting the green level of the production process, adopting the energy-saving equipment, developing the energy-saving process and the process adopting the green energies, and increasing the energy utilization efficiency;
l Adopting the green process and equipment technology generating little or none pollution, actively developing the antimony-free catalytic polyester fiber, reducing and eliminating the waste and pollutant charge and discharge, and realizing comprehensive governance of “solid waste, liquid waste and exhaust gas”;
l Building the chemical fiber energy-saving and green manufacturing standard system, improving the index requirements of energy and water conservation, accelerating amendment of standards on energy consumption, water consumption, carbon emission and clean production, and quickening standardization of green development of the chemical fiber industry.
Prospects of 2019: Industrial risks not to be ignored and an urgent need of high-quality development
Duan Xiaoping pointed out that, in 2019, the world economy will still remain in the trajectory of recovery, but risk factors, such as liquidity shrinkage and aggravation of the American trade protectionism, will exert a growing negative influence on the global economic growth, thus leading to a drop in the global economic growth rate and China’s economic growth rate. Affected by changes of the external environment, China’s macroeconomic development will progress under more pressure, but the general trend of steady development will not be fundamentally changed, nor will the fundamentals of the chemical fiber industry. The Central Committee Economic Work Meeting held recently outlined the economic development direction of 2019 with five “sticking to” and six “stabilizing”. At the same time, Duan Xiaoping also holds that risks facing the industry cannot be ignored. As the demand growth slowed down, the oil price will be more uncertain due to influence of geopolitics. The chances are still high for RMB exchange rate to exceed 7. The domestic demand for high-quality development in the industry will been more and more urgent. Only when the production efficiency and the anti-risk capability are strengthened can the steady development momentum be maintained.
In the coming one year, the China Chemical Fibers Association will work in accordance with the goal of “comprehensively promoting high-quality development of the textile chemical fiber industry”. However, the emphasis should be still laid on the following aspects: Doing a good job in “Outstanding Paper Review of Hengyi Fund” and promoting basic research and original innovation; issuing products in line with the current fashion trends, and promoting the “species increase, quality improvement and brand establishment” strategy; advocating the “green fiber” and seeking sustainable and sound development for the whole industry; selecting outstanding engineers to carry forward the craftsmanship spirit.
