More than 500 delegates from the growing technical textiles and nonwoven industry in China attended the one-day conference at Jinan on March 5, Hangzhou on March 7 and at Quanzhou on March 9, organised by VDMA Textile Machinery Association and VDMA China Representative Office in co-operation with the China Textile Information Center (CTIC) and China Textile Leader (CTL).
China’s technical textiles market is growing fast, particularly in the auto sector. It is expected to almost double from 755 t in 2010 to 1,400 t in 2017. In addition, the 12th Five-Year-Plan seeks to increase the energy and material efficiency in the production process.
Mr. Fritz P. Mayer, President of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association and Managing Associate of Karl Mayer Textilmaschinenfabrik, emphasized in his opening address on March 5: “Worldwide leading German technology suppliers can play a key role to reach the targets in the transformation process of China’s textile industry”.
He added that technical textiles offer a great opportunity in terms of development, innovation and value addition to succeed in the competitive global market.
Ms. Li Binhong, President of China Textiles Development Center, observed at the inaugural session that the future competitiveness of China’s textile industry closely relates to the development and production of technical textiles with higher added value. “Renewable energies, environmental protection, the construction industry, transport, aerospace and geotechnics are the driving forces to stimulate further technical textiles applications”.
Mr. Zhuang Yuexing, Vice General Engineer of fan blade R&D department of Goldwind as one of the largest wind turbine manufacturers in the world, enriched the conference as keynote speaker in Quanzhou with his presentation on “China Wind Energy Development”.
As many as 16 well-known companies from Germany presented their latest technologies for the production of technical yarns, technical fabrics and the finishing process. As application areas they focussed on automotive, hygiene and medical, aramide, reinforced-concrete textile bridges for architecture and civil engineering, 3D warp knits for car seats and multifunctional fabrics for sport fabrics, technical felts for filter purposes, geotextiles, sleevings for thermal insulation, and carbon fiber and composites for rotor blades of wind turbines.
In a visitor survey, 59 per cent evaluated the economic perspectives as good and 39 per cent as excellent. With 15 per cent Oekotech received the highest rate of interest from the visitors, followed by Mobiltech with 13 per cent and Indutech with 12 per cent.
In 2011, German exports of textile machinery increased by 23 per cent to Euro 3.3 billion worldwide. For the first time, German exports to China exceeded the Euro 1 billion mark reaching Euro 1.2 billion (+24 per cent). German textile machinery manufacturers belong to the leading suppliers in China. Considering the Chinese production facilities of German companies the market share is even higher.
Benninger-Zell, DILO-Group, Lindauer Dornier, Groz-Beckert, August Herzog, Lenzing Instruments, Mahlo, Karl Mayer Malimo, Merz, Monforts, Georg Sahm, Oerlikon Saurer, Textechno, Trützschler Spinning, Trützschler Card Clothing and Trützschler Nonwovens were the major German companies that attended the conferences.