Introduction
740 delegates from 30 countries were drawn to
Dornbirn for this, the 50th annual conference organised by the Austrian
Man-Made Fibres Association. Germany
provided most delegates (264) and with Austria (192) and Switzerland (102) the
majority language was German. There were
3 simultaneous sessions so a maximum of a third of the total could be heard. Several
were not available in hard copy and more than usual were available only in
German. The tight scheduling left little
time for questions.
Opening Address
Friedrich
Weninger CEO Lenzing and President of AMFA noted
that in 1962 the first AMFA conference recorded a world fibre production of 15
million tonnes, 0.7 million being synthetic and 10.1 million cotton. Last year the total had reached 73 million
tonnes, 43 million being synthetic, 25 million
being cotton and man-made cellulosics had reached a record 4.2 million tonnes. Continued growth of the total fibre market
was expected to be 3% per annum, with cotton having plateaued and man-made
cellulosics due to grow fastest at 9% pa.
Predicting
short term trends was trickier than ever:
·
The stock market fluctuations
were caused by speculation unbacked by real effects
·
Customers did not really know
what they wanted and could do no more than extrapolate from past trends.
Megatrends
were easier:
·
The future would be dominated
by developments related to energy supply, healthcare, biotechnology,
sustainability, well-being and the convenience of nonwoven materials.
·
Nonwovens would grow to consume
25% of total fibres. (with 100 million tonnes fibres expected to be used by
2020, this equates to 25 million tonnes of nonwovens)
·
Total Technical Textiles
(including NWs) would be half the total.
·
Wood will remain the most
important, but not the only source of cellulose for fibre. Waste biomass sources were being developed.
