World weaving machinery shipments remain strong, says ITMF

13 Jun '05

4 min read

Investments in the world market for textile machinery in 2004 shows a non-uniform picture. While shipments in the areas of texturing and circular knitting dropped, investments in weaving (shuttle-less looms) and flat knitting expanded.

In the spinning sector investments in short-staple spindles reached last year's record level, whereas the ones for long-staple spindles and open-end rotors were reduced significantly.

These are the main results of the annual textile machinery shipment survey just released by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF).

The report covers 5 primary types of machinery, namely spinning, texturing, weaving, large circular knitting, and flat knitting machines.

The 2004 survey has been compiled in cooperation with some 70 textile machinery manufacturers outside of China. Domestic and export shipments by the Chinese textile machinery industry are based on industry estimates and official Chinese export statistics.

Spinning Machinery
Totalling 8.2 million, shipments of short-staple (cotton-) spindles in 2004 remained unchanged from 2003. More than half were destined to China (4.5 million) which was by far the largest single investor. With 1.4 million spindles - more than twice as much compared to 2003 - Pakistan became the second largest investor, followed by India (745,000), Turkey (448,000) and Bangladesh (430,000). 92% of all shipments went to Asia (2003: 88%).

Compared to theprevious year global shipments of long-staple (wool-) spindles fell by 19% to 196,000. Nevertheless, China and Iran increased their investments to 97,000 (+18%) and 41,000 (+64%), respectively, thus remaining the biggest two single investors. On the other hand, after a very strong year in 2003 Turkey experienced a dip (-73%) to 17,000. In consequence, Asia's market share rose from 51% to 72%. Global shipments of open-end rotors slowed considerably in 2004, dropping by almost 20% to 278,000 positions from 346,000 in 2003. Although remaining at 41% the single largest market with 113,000 rotors, China took 55% less than in 2003. Other major destinations were Turkey with 38,000 units (+19%) which saw its world share in 2004 rising to 14%, compared with 9% in 2003 and India whose investments jumped by an impressive 775% to reach 27,000 rotors.

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