Polyester Chain Report 2010

Additional Information

The polyester staple fibre production grew by 3.4% to 12.4 million tons in 2009, spurred by demand and increased capacity utilization. During the year, capacity ex-panded by mere 1% while output and consumption growing at faster rates. Only 172,000 tons of net capacity was added during the year, with Asia alone adding 212,000 tons while other regions witnessed capacity shutdown. Within Asia, it was only China and Vietnam to add capacities.

Consumption of polyester staple fiber increased 3% to 12.4 million tons in 2009. Asia, though account for 88% of global production consumed 79% of global supplies in 2009, thus becoming the major exporter of PSF. However, in recent years, domestic demand within Asian countries has seen a steep rise. In the past 9 years, consumption of PSF recorded an increase of 7.7% per annum slightly faster than the 7.4% growth in production.

Polyester filament yarn industry added a net capacity of 1.22 million tons in 2009 over and above the 1.50 million tons added last year. Thus, the total capacity stood at 26.4 million tons in 2009. The Asian region accounted for the entire capacity expansion and accounted for over 92% of global capacity. Capacities in all the other regions had either declined or remained steady. Middle East was seen slowly moving up in capacity building. Within Asia, it was only China and India that expanded their capacities while Taiwan shut about 100,000 tons of PFY capacity.