China’s technical textiles and nonwovens sector has shown considerable and steady growth for a number of years now, and 2019 was no exception, especially for nonwovens. Annual output of nonwoven fabrics of large-scale Chinese companies last year reached 5.03 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%.

“Obviously the novel coronavirus outbreak has severely affected economic growth across China in the last two months, however we expect the economy to rebound strongly in the second half of the year,” Ms Wendy Wen, Senior General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd explained. 40 international economists polled by Reuters in February did predict a contraction in the economy in quarter one, but were optimistic that the economy would bounce back in the second quarter. “This unfortunate situation does present opportunities in the personal hygiene and protective wear sectors in particular though, with global demand soaring for products made from nonwovens, including face masks, antibacterial wet wipes, protective apparel and more.”

Particularly, there is a supply shortage of one key raw material for surgical mask production – meltblown nonwovens & meltblown equipment. This, along with other nonwovens products and machinery will be in high demand at Cinte Techtextil, with suppliers such as A.Celli Nonwovens, Dilo Systems, Reifenhäuser Reicofil and Trützschler Nonwovens already signed up to take advantage of this.