Poor demand of cotton yarn hits Tamil Nadu textile mills

Chennai, May 1 (KNN) Due to the low demand for yarn in the market, the selling price of hosiery yarn has come down to Rs 331 a kg from Rs 381 a kg in in October last year and the price for warp variety that was Rs 303 a kg in October is Rs 270 a kg at present, said K. Selvaraju, secretary general of the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA).

“The weaving units were doing well even a few days ago. But, the demand fell in the last one-and-a-half months. Though the spinning mills are running at nearly 90 per cent capacity and cotton prices are stable, the demand for yarn is tepid,” SIMA said.

Open end Spinning Mills’Association president G. Arulmozhi says yarn demand has seen slight improvement. But prices are a problem. With textile mills slowing down for the last few months, the open end spinners are unable to get waste cotton and hence, comber noil prices are higher than last year.

“Production cost has gone up by Rs 7 a kg in the last 12 months because of higher labour and power costs and raw material cost is also high. But, yarn prices improved only by Rs 10- Rs 15 a kg in one year,” he said.

Nishant Asher, secretary of Indian Cotton Federation, added that Indian cotton prices were hovering between Rs 61,000 and Rs 62,000 a candy and though it was lower than last year price levels, it was higher than the present international prices.

Asher added that this had made Indian yarn uncompetitive in the international market and buyers were gravitating towards countries such as Vietnam.  (KNN Bureau)