European textile sector
Technical textiles have seen their share of production grow considerably in Europe over the last fifteen years, increasing constantly both in value and in volume. This market has increased from65 to 85 billion from 1995 to 2005. 8.5 million tones, about half of global technical textile production, is consumed in Asia, followed by US and Europe with 5.8 million and 4.8 million tones respectively. In Europe four countries consume about half of the technical textiles in terms of value: Germany, France, the UK and Italy. The technical textiles industry in Germany represents 45% of the European textile industry, followed by France (30%), UK (30%) and Italy(12%).
Europe is one of the world leading exporters of textiles; according to EURATEX, the annual turnover of the textile industry in 2008 was over 203 Billion and the sector employed2.3million workers in more than 145,000 companies [105] (mainly SMEs). However, over the last couple of decades the European textile sector has dropped its production due to the globalization of the economy and the relocation of the European companies outside Europe. These circumstances have worsened due to otherworld economic crisis that started in 2008 and almost 68,000 textiles jobs have been lost. During the first quarter of 2009 this negative trend has continued and production of the textile industry production dropped 23% on average.