cautious recuperation in the face of ongoing difficulties
Date: February 5, 2025 Despite continuous difficulties in the textile value chain, the 30th Global Textile Industry Survey by the ITMF, which was carried out in January 2025, shows a cautiously hopeful prognosis. Although The trend has been improving since November 2024, with South America showing a positive balance of +21 percentage points (pp), but the total global business balance is still negative at -15 pp. Interestingly, clothing producers have also improved, showing a +3pp balance.
With 43% of poll respondents anticipating better circumstances over the next six months, confidence is rising and the global outlook has improved to a positive balance of +29 percentage points. South America and producing groups like Spinners are examples of regions that This feeling is being led by reports of a balance of +46 pp and +45 pp, respectively.
After 14 months of improvement, January 2025 numbers indicate a balance of -6pp, indicating that order intake is still steadily increasing. The only market sector with a positive balance is home textiles, despite South America and South Asia seeing robustly positive growth. In the meanwhile, the Despite such worries, the backlog of orders worldwide has expanded to 2.5 months, with North and Central America at 2.9 months.
Challenges persist as global capacity utilization rate slips to 72%, even though it remains above previous lows. The survey also highlights ongoing worries over weak demand and geopolitical risks, with high energy and raw material prices adding to industry pressures. However, order cancellations have stayed low and stable, and overall inventory levels have remained relatively unchanged.