The Challenge Of The Synthetics

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 14

The Challenge Of The Synthetics

The world’s textile industry has seen an intensifying struggle in recent years between synthetic and natural products. In a field as sensitive to competitive pressures as the chemical industry, policy changes are apt to come with startling suddenness. World output of synthetic fibres was nearly trebled between 1960 and 1965; and over-capacity on a vast scale is now forcing a drastic slow-down in production. In April, Imperial Chemical Industries, with a fanfare of publicity, inaugurated its first European synthetic fibre plant at Oestringen, near Heidelberg. Production of nylon, it was announced, would rise rapidly to 20,000 tons a year by mid-1967. Yet today, not because of any contraction of demand but because of over-supply, 1.C.1. is reported to have laid off a tenth of the personnel in its fibres division. The increasing popularity of synthetics makes it certain, in the expert view, that a balance will be restored; but the process, involving idle plant or plant operating at far below capacity, is likely to cost some of the giants of the industry a lot of money. 1.C.1., for instance, is thought to have a third, possibly half, of its total investment tied up in synthetic fibres, with a quarter of its sales going to the textile industry.

Widening use of synthetics is necessarily having its effects on both wool and cotton. The figures are revealing. Last year, of the 40.3 billion lb of fibres produced in the world, approximately a tenth were synthetics. The “ Economist ” has pointed out that already this is more than the total production of wool, but nowhere near cotton’s total of 25 billion lb. “ This is where the market for synthetics lies ”, said the “Economist”, “not necessarily eating directly “ into cotton’s markets, but taking the growth in “ them, and from wool—now fighting back through “ the International Wool Secretariat ”. Strength and wearing qualities are among the advantages claimed for the synthetics. In Britain, nylon has almost swept wool out of the sock market In the United States, where the vast Du Pont organisation dominates the production scene, synthetics supply 38 per cent of the fibre market; and the expectation is that the proportion may be doubled in 10 years—depending, presumably, on the resiliency and adaptability of wool and cotton in the fight for survival. The cotton growers have their own problems in the struggle, as a July survey showed. Last year the manufacturers of synthetics spent five times as much in research as was spent on cotton. In addition, some 70 million dollars went on sales promotion for synthetics compared with a modest four million dollars for cotton. The concern of growers has been reflected in the setting up of a new International Cotton Institute, which next year will launch a major sales drive in Japan and Western Europe, which already account for three-quarters of the world’s trade in cotton. It is obvious, from the expansionist zeal shown by the manufacturers of synthetics, that both wool and cotton will have to fight in the promotion field. The stakes are too high to allow any relaxation of effort.