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.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
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