Currently, the European Union can boast of being the world's largest producer of polypropylene fibres, but in contrast, the continent's role as a producer of polyester has diminished markedly over the years.
However, the continent can also credit itself with the fact that, it has the biggest single-site units for producing acrylic and viscose fibres.
For example, AKSA Acrylic, a subsidiary of AKKÖK Group in Turkey has a site with a capacity to produce 308,000 tons of acrylic fibres—12% of the global total. Austrian company, Lenzing has a site with a capacity of 255,000 tons of viscose fibre and a further 250,000 tons of pulp.
European countries in total produced 3.2 million tons of man-made fibres in 2009, valued at €10.5 billion, out of which export sales totaled to €2 billion. As of now the European man-made fibre industry still employs around 25,000 employees.
The only redeeming feature of the man-made fibre sector in the European Union is partly due to the critical role it plays in the production of polypropylene fibres, which go predominantly into manufacturing of technical textiles.