EDANA is a leading global association that is successfully serving the nonwovens and related industries for many years. On the opening day of INDEX 17, the largest meeting place for the nonwovens supply chain and their customers, it has disclosed its preliminary 2016 annual statistics.
The event provides a comprehensive insight into the non-woven industry across Europe showing the latest figures that explain momentum as well as durability of the industry. According to EDANA, the overall production of nonwovens in Europe grew by 2.5% in volume in 2016 to reach 2,378,700 tons despite an uncertain economic climate.
According to Jacques Prigneaux, EDANA’s Market Analysis and Economic Affairs Director “Germany, Italy and Spain all witnessed growth, with Spain’s particularly impressive at 5%, while recent star performer Turkey remained stable, more than compensating for the minor decline recorded in some other European markets.” A variety of trends was observed between different production processes on the non-woven. The production of fibre-based materials dryland and short-fibre air laid technologies, for example, recorded an increase of 2.2% and 2.9% respectively, while wetlaid remained relatively stable.
Spunmelt nonwovens recorded a growth rate of 3.3%, reaching a production total of 1 million tons for the very first time. The highest growth rate was observed in material produced via the air-through bonding process, with a 13.1% increase.
Although the primary main end-use for nonwovens continues to be the hygiene market, with a 30.7% share of deliveries (by weight), significant growth areas for nonwovens were recorded in other sectors; agriculture and garments (both recording double digit growth), air filtration (+3.2%), construction (+4.5%) and food and beverage (+4.2%). Countering this, a minor decline of -1% was recorded in the automotive industry. Medical and personal care wipes sectors both remained stable with a very slight fall of 0.4%.
“For more than 40 years the yearly statistics reports of EDANA has helped the member companies to have an unparalleled insight into the industry and the credit goes to the exhaustive research and direct input from producers,” said was so by Pierre Wiertz, General Manager of EDANA.
