The International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) latest “Corona-Survey” showed that respondents describe the business situation as favorable along the global textile value chain.
In the second half of January, the ITMF conducted the 12th such survey among more than 270 companies around the world in all segments along the textile value chain. On average across all regions and all segments, the business situation was still “very favorable” according to 23 percent of respondents, although lower than the 28 percent that said that in November.
“This high level is remarkable given the fast-rising infection number of the Corona-variant Omicron since the 11th ITMF Corona-Survey,” ITMF said. “The fact that a rising number of companies find themselves in a satisfactory business situation (48 percent) is an indication for a strong and broad recovery.”
When it came to the business expectations in the next six months, the global textile value chain remained optimistic. While the balance between more favorable and less favorable has fallen from 33 percent to 25 percent, “it needs to be considered that these expectations are built on a very favorable business situation–or to put it differently, only 14 percent of companies are anticipating a less favorable business by July,” ITMF said.
A look at the different regions shows that the business situation is in positive territory in all areas except for East Asia and Africa, where the balance between good and bad business situation is negative. The expectations are very positive except for East Asia.
As for the different segments, the downstream segments–weavers/knitters, finishers/printers and garment producers–are catching up with the upstream segments: fiber producers, spinners and textile machinery producers. The order intake has fallen from a high level of 40 percent in November to 30 percent in January 2022. This is in line with the slightly weaker business situation, ITMF noted.
Order intake expectations in January remained practically on the same level as in November. Since May, order backlog is hovering between 2.4 and 2.9 months. The expectations do not indicate a change in the next six months.
“The capacity utilization rate continues to increase slowly, but continuously since May, indicating that the supply chain disruption is still a big, but hopefully a diminishing, concern,” ITMF added.