In the second quarter, with the relative improvement of the domestic COVID-19 pandemic, the resumption of work and production of enterprises accelerated, the textile terminal market demand has rebounded, and the decline in major operating indicators such as production, investment and quality efficiency in the chemical fiber industry has significantly narrowed compared with January to March. However, due to the spread of the pandemic abroad, the import and export volume of chemical fiber has dropped significantly, especially the export volume of major products has turned from a positive growth in January to March to a negative growth. International oil prices began to fluctuate upwards after experiencing a sharp drop in April, which supported the cost of chemical fiber to a certain extent, but insufficient demand is still the biggest problem facing the current industry. Although some indicators of the chemical fiber industry showed signs of recovery in the first half of the year, the impact caused by the impact of the pandemic is still there, and the stable operation throughout the year is still facing greater challenges.

Terminal demand for textile and apparel continues to recover. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to June, the national retail sales of clothing, footwear, and knitting textiles above designated size dropped by 19.6% year-on-year, the decrease was 3.9 percentage points narrower than that in January - May and 12.6 percentage points narrower than that in January - March; the national retail sales of online clothing products fell by 2.9% year-on-year, a decrease of 3.9 percentage points from January to May, and 12.2 percentage points from January to March. With the improvement of domestic downstream demand, among the main downstream direct products of chemical fiber, the decline in output of cotton blended yarn, chemical fiber yarn, cotton blended fabric, and chemical fiber staple fiber cloth was narrowed from January to March. The decline in chemical fiber yarn output narrowed by 13.12 percentage points. As an anti-pandemic material, the output growth rate of nonwovens continued to increase, a year-on-year increase of 6.55%. According to China Customs data, from January to June, China’s textile and apparel exports amounted to USD 130.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.9%, achieving the first export growth rate since 2020 from negative to positive.

 

The overall output of chemical fiber basically recovered to the level of the same period last year. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of chemical fiber from January to June was 28.1054 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 0.98%. The rate of decline narrowed by 2.18 percentage points from January to May and 8.98 percentage points from January to March. Among them, the output of polyester was 22,365,700 tons, a year-on-year increase of 0.04%, reversing the decline from January to May; the output of nylon was 2.0051 million tons, an increase of 1.32% year-on-year; the output of viscose staple fiber was 1,367,000 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 32.74%; the output of spandex was 387,600 tons, an increase of 0.27% year-on-year.

 

The impact of the foreign pandemic situation is obvious, and the growth rate of the export of major products has dropped significantly compared with the first quarter. According to China Customs data, China imported 381,800 tons of chemical fiber from January to June, a year-on-year decrease of 15.20%, which was 3.93 percentage points deeper than that from January to March. Imports of major products all declined year-on-year. This is mainly because some of the pre-orders were executed from January to March, and the global pandemic situation accelerated after March. Affected by the foreign pandemic situation, the export of chemical fiber has declined severely. From January to June, the export of chemical fiber was 1,937,600 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 19.21%, and the decline was 19.97 percentage points deeper than that from January to March. Among them, the export of polyester staple fiber was 338,200 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 32.61%, which was 18.13 percentage points deeper than that from January to March; the export of polyester filament yarn was 1,141,700 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 14.84%, from a positive growth (2.00%) to a negative growth from January to March; the export of viscose staple fiber was 161,100 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 21.20%, and the positive growth (12.51%) from January to March turned into a negative growth; the export of viscose filament yarn was 30,500 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 31.19%, from the positive growth (15.69%) from January to March turned to negative growth; the export of spandex was 33,700 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 9.99%, and the positive growth from January to March (17.33%) turned to negative growth; among the main products, only acrylic fiber maintained a growth trend. The export volume increased by 20.37% year-on-year, but the growth rate also dropped by 124 percentage points from January to March.

 

The economic efficiency has been greatly improved compared with the first quarter. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to June, the main business income of the chemical fiber industry was 349.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 18.38%, which was 6.98 percentage points narrower than that from January to March; the total profit realized was 7.234 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 41.86%. The rate of decline narrowed by 20.44 percentage points from January to March. The loss of the industry was 42.75%, which was 2.9 percentage points narrower from January to March. However, the percentage of loss-making enterprises increased by 71.69% year-on-year, which was an increase of 18.02 percentage points from January to March. Except for the spandex and polypropylene industries, the total profits of other major chemical fiber sub-sectors all declined year-on-year, but the rate of decline narrowed to varying degrees.

 

The decline in fixed asset investment has narrowed. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to June, the fixed asset investment in the chemical fiber industry fell by 16.9% year-on-year, and the rate of decline narrowed by 6.3 percentage points from January to May and 2.3 percentage points from January to March. It shows that with the improvement of the domestic pandemic, the investment willingness and investment actions of enterprises have recovered in the second quarter.　　

(Source: China Chemical Fiber Association)