The economic meltdown in the West and significant slowdown in Europe is having an adverse impact on the Indian textiles industry. Although, the Rupee has depreciated considerable over the past couple of months, the advantage of export gains has apparently lost. Consumer demand appears to be at its low both in USA and Europe. Reports indicate that Western buyers are insisting on postponing deliveries of ordered goods by almost two months. Payments against delivered goods are also been postponed by at least a month.

The crisis on domestic front is also dogging the industry. Cotton prices are high by 20% - due to increase in MSP for cotton, despite crashing global cotton prices. Textiles production in the first half of 2008-09 has increased by a mere 0.3% as against 5.2% in the corresponding period of 2007-08.

Crude oil prices declined 20- 25% in October as recession grips USA threatened to slow down the global economy. The WTI spot price averaged US$ 80.15/ barrel, a decline of 24.2%. Likewise, the European prices also declined by 23.3% to US$ 75.31/ barrel. In Far East Asia, crude oil price averaged US$ 65.51/ barrel, a drop of 30%. This was clearly reflected in naphtha prices while declined by 41% to US$ 508/ton CFR Asia.

THE GLOBAL NYLON INDUSTRY
The US$1,000 million nylon industry – the first synthetic fibre produced ever, has been performing in a very sluggish manner in recent times. Nylon production has been hovering between 3.8-3.9 million tons since the past 5-6 years. Investments are severed in this industry which is facing serious competition from cheaper material of polyester and polypropylene. Research and development is limited to further improvement in the nylon performance with little effort to explore new usages. However, engineering nylons have been showing great potential for its usage in automobiles, aircrafts and engineering goods.

• Statistics on demand and supply with projection for the fibre over next five years
• Objective analysis of the trends and recent development of the nylon Industry covering the entire value chain beginning from benzene further to intermediate – caprolactum, down to nylon fibre and filaments
• Major investments and capacity shut down
• Tabulation and Graphical presentation of trends in demand and supply of nylon chain across countries from 2003 to 2007 and projections upto 2013 for Nylon
• Much more…