Japan man-made fibre November output falls 6.7%

18 December 2007 10:23  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS news)--Japan’s production of man-made fibres in November fell 6.7% compared with the year-ago period, with acrylic staple leading the drop on rising feedstock acrylonitrile (ACN) prices, a local industry association said on Tuesday.

The country produced a total of 94,019 tonnes of man-made fibres in November, down from the same time the previous year, the Japan Chemical Fibres Association (JCFA) spokesman said.

Of the man-made fibres total, 79,876 tonnes of synthetic fibres were produced in November, an 8.3% decrease year on year.

Japan produced 15,455 tonnes of acrylic staple in November, down 28.5% from November 2006.

As well as the rise in ACN prices, a reason for the decline of production was because more than half of Japan’s production of acrylic staple was exported to China, where demand was shifting to polyester staple from acrylic staple, the spokesman said.

He also cited that China was lately importing less of the product than the same season in other years because Beijing was tightening finance on imports.

Meanwhile, Japan produced 9,340 tonnes of nylon filament in November, down 5.1% from the same period a year ago, the association said.

November production of polyester filament also declined 5% year on year to 21,149 tonnes.

However, the production of polyester staple increased 8.6% to 16,260 tonnes in November from the year-ago period.

By: Tomomi Yokomura
+65 6780 4359

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