By Ganesh Kalidasan
The Indian International Yarn Exhibition, Yarnex 2012, a three-day event held at the India Knit Fair Complex in Tirupur in August, attracted more than 50 exhibitors and nearly 4,000 buyers. It witnessed significant new entries from international exhibitors and major yarn and fiber manufacturers like RSWM, INVISTA, Trident Group, Kingdon-China, Pallavaa Group, Ramco Group, Vardhman Textiles Ltd. and Welspun, among others, demonstrating the importance of the trade platform within the upstream yarns and fiber industry.
Yarnex 2012 brought together major players and experts and featured latest product displays. The participants showcased their collections of yarns and fibres, ranging from natural fibres made from cotton, wool silk, linen/ramie to regenerate and synthetic man-made fibres and special yarns as well as fancy blended yarns.
The event proved an ideal platform for manufacturers and suppliers worldwide to reach buyers and sellers not only from Tirupur and the surrounding areas like Coimbatore, Salem, Karur, and Chennai, but also from cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, the National Capital Region (NCR), Bangalore, Kolkata, etc. As in the case of the previous edition, there were a number of buyers from the EU nations, Middle-East and South-Asian countries.
The show helped to exchange market information, learn the latest innovations, gain views of experts and make direct business contacts within the knitting, weaving, spinning dyeing, garmenting and related supporting industries.
Invista: For the past few years Invista has realigned its focus in South-Asia, including India, and is very bullish about the market. “Next to China, the South Asian market is a major manufacturing base which is increasing by leaps and bounds and especially India, recognized all over the world for its domestic market and its manufacturing prominence.”
Invista is trying to create its presence in all the platform, at all the levels in the value chain starting from the mill manufacturer to the brands. Yarnex is a show focusing more on the trade at the spinning mill, weaving mill level and buyers who come looking for speciality yarn. “We at Invista are manufacturers of a variety of speciality yarn which serves various functions and a variety of end users”.
Amsler: Amsler provides attachments for the spinning frame using which the spinner can produce value-added yarn like Amsler cub effect yarn or the Amsler core spun yarn to make stretch garments. The company has its good presence in the Tirupur market.
Amsler works on a network basis where the systems are supplied to a spinner and then support the spinner in selling the yarn as well. “In Tirupur, we developed the slub yarn market for the knits”. There is a very good response in the Tirupur region for the Linen Look, meaning possibility of having a linen finish on a 100% cotton fabric using Amsler’s attachments. Focusing on a niche segment, Amsler is very positive about the growth prospects for its speciality yarns.
Kingdom-China: Kingdom, a China-based company, is the biggest manufacturer of wet spun linen yarn in the world. Out of the 440,000 spindles produced in the world for linen, Kingdom has a capacity of 75 thousand spindles which will be increasing to 100,000 spindles by 2013, giving the company a market share of more than 20 per cent of this segment.
Kingdom is offering yarns of pure linen from 5nm to 60nm in bleached as well as natural category. It has also pioneered the art of manufacturing wet spun linen yarn for knitting.
Kingdom, having its presence in India for more than four years, is supplying to top customers like Raymonds, D’Decor, Cotex Industries, Arvind, etc. Since linen yarn is growing by 20 per cent year on year and the trend is expected to continue for another five years, Kingdom feels there is a huge untapped market for linen in India and aims at capturing a sizable market share in the coming years.
Royal Yarns: The company, established more than two decades ago, is the sole distributer for Vardhaman in south India. Vardhaman caters to all the needs of this industry, from cotton to compact to milanges to special blends, etc., which is the biggest plus point for the company. “Commitment to on-time delivery and supplying of superior quality are our biggest strengths”.
The two-day show was a good platform to meet customers not just from the local Tirupur region, but on a pan-India level. In an exhibition where most of the players talking about the speciality yarn, Vardhaman is the biggest producer of special yarns in India. VORTEX, a new kind of yarn manufactured by air-jet spinning method, was on display at the expo.
Ramco Group: The Ramco Textiles Division is a dominant player in the Tirupur and surrounding markets supplying coarser counts like 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. The Ramco Group is also one of the biggest manufacturers of Amsler slub yarn and coarse spun yarn. The company is supplying a major portion to Mitsubishi Corp of Japan and also to major brands in Italy. “Compared to 2011, this year seems to be dull and will have to concentrate more on technology and innovation to sustain further in this industry”.
RSWM: RSWM, a company with 400,000 spindles and 10,000 tonne yarn manufacturing capacity, is a major manufacturer of cotton and synthetic yarns. The company manufactures a variety of special yarns with varying counts and different manufacturing methods according to the needs of the customer.
RSWM also produces special yarns used in the manufacture of terri-towels such as zero-twist yarn, modal yarn, etc. It has also ventured into technical textiles to capture a sizable market share in the growing vertical.
The company showcased stretch yarns used in sport wears, bamboo yarn and static yarn. “So far India has been a cotton dominated market, and the use of speciality yarn is slowly increasing. Hence RSWM is looking at increasing its market share is this particular segment. We hope Yarnex will open new doors for our products in Tamil Nadu”.
Trident: Trident, a Rs. 5,000-crore textile group, has its activities predominantly in terri-toweling and spinning. The company’s major chuck of business is from spinning but of late is virtually moving more and more towards value addition. “The main purpose of participating in the Yarnex expo is to exhibit our value-added yarn, and Tirupur is one of the major destinations for foreign buyers for garments, retail chains and lifestyle buyers. We are targeting this market for our value-added yarns”.
Trident turns out products that include melanges, dyed yarns, blended yarns, speciality yarns with anti-bacterial properties, etc. The company also provides better solutions to the terri-towel and denim industry. Directly or indirectly, the products are being used by brands like Marks&Spencers, Next, IKEA, Walmart, Target, etc., all over the world.
“We see a lot of growth potential for our speciality yarns in this segment, because India’s strategy is different. We cannot compete with China or Bangladesh in the mass segment. Hence we are gearing up to focus on this newly emerging textile area”.
Welspun: “Welspun mainly focuses on the speciality variety and not the common ones. The company’s main motto is to produce speciality yarns that are not being manufactured by our competitors”. The quality of Welspun is known across the globe and is also the reason for their premium pricing.
“Regarding the Yarnex, the association decided to conduct to have an interaction between the buyers and sellers and so started this exhibition couple of years back. It is a very good platform to display our wide variety of yarn to our existing and new customers. The quality of response has picked up in the last 2-3 years and the focus for this exhibition has been to target the domestic manufacturers and the local powerloom weavers.”
KG Denim, Raymond’s and Arvind are just a few of the customers. Welpun is supplying with a network of offices across India to cater to the vast growing needs of the nation.