The U.S. textile industry is experiencing an investment boom

At the beginning of the new year, Toray Corporation of Japan announced that it will invest US$1 billion in South Carolina, USA, to develop new carbon fiber materials. As of today, tens of billions of dollars have triggered a boom in textile investment in the United States. Mr. Bill Smith, an American textile authority, was deeply surprised. He said that although the United States is the largest textile trade market in the world, why did it trigger a large number of Asian companies to flock in?
As early as the 1950s, when Japanese products entered the U.S. market, they were scorned by Americans, who thought that inferior products were coming across the ocean in droves. To this day, after Japan’s textile industry, electrical appliances, automobiles and other products have made the Japanese economy rise. Today, labor is no longer a competitive element in the textile industry market. The Japanese have transferred the textile industry to developing countries. Today, 85% to 90% of the country’s textiles come from China. In addition, something even more surprising is happening in South Carolina, USA.
China Cole Textile Group also invested US$218 million in the state to create a textile base with an annual output of 230,000 square meters, creating 501 job opportunities for the United States. The company intends to use locally produced cotton fiber to spin yarn and produce it using local advanced equipment and technical labor, and then export it directly to China. First output should be in the first quarter of 2015. The reason is that since 1993, the U.S. textile industry has lost 360,000 jobs, and 4 out of 5 companies have had to close their doors. The fifth surviving company has achieved phoenix nirvana and now stands at the pinnacle of textile technology with new products, new equipment and new ideas. Its production volume and product quality are the sum of the past five companies. They have won the market with innovation and efficiency, while the demand for labor is less than one-third of what it used to be. This is how the American textile elite survives today.
Foreign textile capital is pouring into the United States. Gildan Activewear Inc. in Montreal, Canada, also plans to invest US$250 million in North Carolina, the United States, to expand and build two spinning mills. The investment is aimed at supporting growing market demand and changing the company’s global low-value weaving image.
Today, China’s labor, energy and land prices are soaring, and the originally low production costs are gradually rising. What’s more, a large number of technology companies in the United States are also eager to get involved in the new textile industry. The School of Textile at the University of North Carolina found that the cost of producing 1 kilogram of yarn in the United States in 2010 was US$3.45, and today it has risen to US$4.13 in China! If the good labor skills and advanced technology of the United States are used, the production cost in the United States is even lower than that of Turkey, South Korea and Brazil. Even Indian textile companies came to the United States unwilling to be left alone, trying to grab a piece of the pie. Investigating the reason, India’s Alok Company believes that the main reason is extremely low energy prices in the United States. Secondly, they also plan to adopt American high technology and recruit high-quality talents. Another Indian company, Shri Vallabh Pittie, plans to invest US$70 million in the United States to establish a yarn spinning factory in the United States, employ 250 local laborers, and produce rough cotton yarn. The company is convinced that the United States has world-class infrastructure, skilled labor, advanced production equipment and high-quality cotton fiber, so it can directly produce high-quality yarn products for the international market. The influx of foreign companies to the United States also includes a large number of nonwoven and textile manufacturing and other enterprises. Germany’s Fredenburg Nonwoven Development Company has also established a Textile Advanced Technology Center in Tulane, North Carolina, USA. German BMW and Michelin tires have also come to the United States to invest and set up factories.
North and South Carolina in the United States have gradually become the center of the world’s textile industry. In fact, the American textile industry never really disappeared. It’s just that they are creating another market, namely technical textiles, in a technologically leading way.
What Americans have lost is just the traditional textile market. The American textile industry has truly realized the transformation from tradition to innovation.
There is an investment boom in the U.S. textile industry, which has created tens of thousands of jobs in the industry and created investment opportunities for the United States.
​Local companies are still very wealthy
In 2014, Americans themselves also invested more than 4 billion US dollars in this hot land, mainly in the following areas: American Global Fiber Company has invested in Fiber Innovation Technology Enterprises (FIT), purchasing the company’s continuous fiber products in one fell swoop Bi-component assets to obtain dual-component technical support to complete innovative fiber production and expand to meet the needs of new markets, including clothing, automotive interiors, industrial filtration and the medical industry. As we all know, asset restructuring can enable companies to obtain enhanced value, which has become a new way of investing today. In addition, the American Palmetto Synthetic Fiber Company is a company specializing in man-made staple fibers. They also invested US$1.1 million to add a secondary recycled fiber production line, built a warehouse that can store 25,000 square meters, and added 20 employees. The company has expanded production of new projects as early as 2008 and 2010. In September this year, Chinese company JNFibers Inc. agreed to spend $45 million to build a factory in South Carolina to convert waste plastic bottles into polyester fiber for filling in pillows and furniture. The investment is expected to bring 318 jobs to the local area. Development officials in South Carolina and Georgia both said that Asian textile companies that have contacted them this year…The volume continues to increase.
The Greensboro Company of the United States also invested in the assets of Drawtech Technology Company, a subsidiary of Dillon Yarn Fiber Company. The assets purchased included complete spinning and drawing equipment. The aim is to produce value-added products from recycled polyester and nylon, i.e. to capture the medium tensile strength yarn market. The cooperation between the two companies aims to respond to the needs of the new yarn market. In addition, North American Sappi Fine Paper Mill was originally a company in South Africa specializing in the production of pulp and paper products. This year they invested US$170 million in the United States to acquire a kraft pulp mill in Minnesota, with the intention of producing 330,000 tons of special textile fiber annually. Vegetarian fiber. Once the investment is successful, it will become the newest pulp mill in the United States.
Originally traveled across the oceans and now returns to invest
American polymer group PGI specializes in the nonwoven industry, and its products are involved in filtration, construction, medical technology, agriculture, health care, technical fabrics, geosynthetic materials and other industries. They originally purchased the London Fiber Network Company and a Brazilian company in one fell swoop. They have now created the world’s largest nonwovens manufacturing company overseas, employing 4,000 employees in 13 countries in South America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. As of July 2014, these projects were gradually put into production. But today, they are also beginning to target the local market.
Another American company, Fitesa Simpsonville Inc., specializes in manufacturing medical and industrial materials. It originally exported capital to Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Italy and China, and established many overseas companies. It currently plans to invest US$50 million in the United States and will create a non-woven production capacity of 190,000 square meters per year in the United States this year. The new project will be completed in November this year. The company has successively set up factories in its home state of Washington and Wisconsin. Not only that, the American H&V Company is a provider specializing in the production of battery separators and industrial nonwovens. This year they plan to invest US$6 million to expand production capacity and add equipment for the production of electrostatic filter media for the European market. This strategy has led them to become the world’s leading producer of high-performance synthetic filter media. In the fourth quarter of 2014, their new production line will also be put into production. The company has independent manufacturing plants and R&D centers in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia.
Swift Spinning Inc., another spinning company in the United States, plans to set up an employee equity incentive plan (ESOP) to encourage employees to bring new turnarounds to the company by owning equity. This 108-year-old American spinning company found that if this strategy could be adopted in management, customer service, production, and business, it would bring new life to the company, so they also hired 300 additional employees. The American Parkdale Mills Inc. has invested US$85 million in spinning equipment and has built two spinning mills. It plans to increase the annual output of T-shirts and high-end active yarns within this year and complete the expansion by the end of this year. Target. The company already has 25 spinning mills in the United States, Colombia and Mexico. Not only that, the American Golf Coast Spinning Co.LLC (GCS) is a textile venture capital company. They have invested US$130 million in Louisiana, USA, to create a cotton yarn equipment manufacturing enterprise. The two investments add up to a total investment of US$150 million, creating two textile factories, which are expected to create 386 direct jobs and 1,000 indirect jobs in the United States, processing an average of 450,000 pounds of cotton fiber and synthetic yarn per week. Its scale is four times that of Lacassine, another large textile factory, and will directly consume 15% to 20% of the state’s cotton production every year.
The return of textiles has a long way to go
In fact, as early as 2012, the Obama administration had begun to consider the return strategy for rebuilding the textile industry, and strongly supported the “Made in America” ​​return proposal initiated by the Democratic Party of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also believes that the rebound in consumer demand will also be conducive to the reconstruction of the US manufacturing industry. Industry insiders pointed out that if the voice and momentum of “Made in America” ​​remain strong in a few years, most of the discontinued factories in the United States will cater to market demand and will be willing to operate again. This is why there are not only fiber spinning companies, but also technical textile companies, and more non-woven companies, fiberglass companies, and composite materials companies have also kept pace with the times and invested in and set up factories in North Carolina and South Carolina in the United States. reason. This place integrates scientific research, development, production and marketing, and has indeed become the center of the world’s textile industry. However, it is difficult for American industry insiders to be optimistic about the U.S. textile industry. The reason is that although the U.S. government advocates re-establishing the manufacturing system of the textile and apparel industry, in the current period when “price is king” and “fast fashion” are consumption characteristics, U.S. apparel companies that can shoulder the production of mid-to-high-end products cannot really mobilize Enthusiasm for the production of mid- to low-end goods. Affected by many other factors, it is far from easy for the U.S. textile and apparel industry to achieve a renaissance.