China’s demand for viscose filament yarn (VFY) in 2015 and there was less stimulus from popular varieties. The uptrend in the export market was also reversed on the back of falling consumption in major consumers of India and Europe and sales in overseas market are expected to decrease by 10 per cent year on year.

In China, sales of fine-denier products improved, but the volume was not large enough to fill the gap. Although exports remained unsatisfied, there were still divergences in different grades of products.

Continuous spinning and fine-denier viscose filament yarn among high-end products as well is widely applied in the downstream sector like knitting fabric, so the demand is not largely restrained by the environment of industry.

Besides demand from high-end products, there is room of further increase in new areas. This increase mainly comes from the substitution of high-grade silk. Currently, the super fine-denier viscose filament yarn produced by first-grade and several third-grade plants are mainly used to replace silk products. With the joint development of upstream and downstream sectors in recent years, the whole substitution trend has been improved significantly.

VFY producers are putting in more efforts on the development of new products as well as the expansion of new applications.