Unusual ‘Peak Season’ For Waterjet Loom Fabric In Wujiang And Jiaxing

Weaving

Unusual ‘Peak Season’ For Waterjet Loom Fabric In Wujiang And Jiaxing

Weaving mills with waterjet looms in China's Wujiang and Wangjiangjing, Jiaxing should have stepped into traditional slack season in May-June. However, the slack season seems to have become a peak one this year. The fabric orders of waterjet looms in Wujiang not only extended the favourable momentum of March-April but performed much better than the same period last year.

The good sales obviously lowered the fabric inventory of mills in Wujiang and Wangjiangjing, Jiaxing, especially polyester taffeta inventory which dropped to 7-10 days (normally at one month). Three reasons for the good sales in traditional slack season are being cited.

Firstly, in view of grey fabric in Wujiang and Wangjiangjing, Jiaxing, sales of conventional varieties like polyester taffeta, pongee and oxford which should have been the most sluggish in May-June, have instead been brisk. The market is impacted by the environmental protection policies on waterjet loom and printing and dyeing. The waterjet looms forced to be shut are producing relatively low-end conventional products. Thus traders of grey fabric took orders of conventional varieties in advance in expectation of tight supplies later.

Secondly, fabric orders of waterjet looms in Wujiang increased to high level in Sept-Nov 2016 with vigorous profits and sales, which resulted in positive expectation to that in this Sept-Nov. In addition, given stricter environmental protection, orders for peak season are taken in advance. At last, new capacity of FDY grows slowly in recent years. Only Yijing's 200kt/yr FDY unit restarted this year while Huaya's 200kt/yr, Hengli's 200kt/yr, Huaxiang's 400kt/yr (including a part of FDY) and Xinxin's 120kt/yr units were shut down for turnaround and Yifeng's No.2 400kt/yr (including 300kt/yr FDY) unit announced turnaround plan. Thus supply of FDY, especially that of superfine denier tended to be tight and the price kept rising. The fabric price also followed upward trend, driving fabric traders to order in advance to fix the fabric price.