According to the China Chemical Fibers Association, the nation production of manmade fibers during January-April 2020 decreased by 5.0% year-on-year to 17.53 million tons.
As a result of the spreading coronavirus, production has been decreasing since the January-February 2020 period, but as items such as nylon are showing a recovery, the January-April production decrease is 5 percentage points smaller than the January-March period (down 10%).
Among major items, production decreased for polyester, rayon staple fiber and acrylics, while it increased for nylon, rayon filament, acetate filament and spandex.
It was the first time this year that the production of nylon increased on a year-to-date basis. As demand for masks grew with the coronavirus pandemic, the production of spandex, used for the ear cords of masks, has been increasing since the January-February period.
MMF exports during January-April 2020 decreased by 7.7% year-on-year to 1.45 million tons. The export value dropped 18.8% to US$2.4 billion.
The turnovers of MMF enterprises larger than a certain scale fell 20% during the first four months of this year to 220.6 billion yuan. Total profits (pretax profits) dropped 60% to 3.2 billion yuan. The profit margin was 1.4%, down 1.6 percentage points from the year before.
