According to forecast and trends, China’s polyester demand remains healthy until the end of October amid rising feedstock costs and improving export demand.
Polyester demand showed significant improvement after China’s week-long holiday.
According to Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), China’s polyester sales-to-output ratio jumped to 135-160% in the week ended 16 October. The boost in demand for China’s polyester could be due to India’s textile factories’ closures while practicing COVID-19 lockdowns.
However, the textile industry is a labor-intensive industry.
Once the textile factories in India resume production, China will face falling export orders as India’s textile industry has an advantage due to the lower labor cost.
The polyester staple fiber (PSF) inventories have fallen to -3 to 5 days from 4 to 12 days at the end of September. Some PSF producers even have negative inventories and have pre-sold all their stocks already. Furthermore, the prices of raw materials are also rising. Thus, the producers have to raise prices to recoup margins.
