Soaring dyes VS. Dropping dyeing fee DOPE DYED POLYESTER FIBER

After Xiangshui blast, dye price increased sharply. Dispersed black ETC moved up from 38yuan/kg to 70yuan/kg, and S-GL turquoise blue climbed up from 160yuan/kg to 500yuan/kg, ZBLH blue up from 100yuan/kg to 350yuan/kg, red jade up from 30yuan/kg to 60yuan/kg, and scarlet up from 30yuan/kg to 60yuan/kg. Such price increase was so exaggerate that price of some dyes even increased by more than 200%.

A large dye price increase brought larger cost burden to printing and dyeing mills. Since late Mar, there were increasing rumors about increasing dyeing fee in Hangzhou, Cixi, Shaoxing, Guangdong and Fujian, which showed that printing and dyeing mills were more eager to cut cost pressure by adjusting dyeing fee when facing price boom of dyes.

However, in fact, the actual implementation of adjusting up dyeing fees was not smooth. By investigating dyeing fee changes of printing and dyeing mills in various region in Apr, it was found that although printing and dyeing enterprises said they quoted up dyeing fees, only some high-end printing and dyeing enterprises actually did. Most printing and dyeing enterprises did not raise their dyeing fees, or it was just the intention.

Recently, as to subsequent changes in dyeing fees of printing and dyeing mills, it was found that mills which produced knitting products including warp knitting and circular knitting saw lower dyeing fee, down by 5-10%.Dyeing fees of printing and dyeing mills were not only hard to move up amid large increase of dyes, but even dropped, which further narrowed profits of dyeing mills. Large-scaled dyeing mills with 3-6 months dye available may afford exaggerated dyes increased, but it was not so lucky for small-sized dyeing mills. And small-sized one may suffer losses. That is why printing and dyeing enterprise association in Keqiao Shaoxing issued the "Initiative on Joint Resistance to Abnormal Price Increment of Dyes and Chemicals" on Apr 15. It is also a helplessness that printing and dyeing mills are hard to pass on cost amid a sharp rise in dyes.

So why do printing and dyeing mills feel difficult to adjust dyeing fee to pass on cost when facing such soaring dye. In the past few years, a considerable number of printing and dyeing enterprises needed to shut down and rectify amid environmental protection and rectification. At that time, it also triggered a round of dyeing fees increment and full orders. The rectified printing and dyeing mills now returned to the market after upgrading. Although the number of printing and dyeing mills decreased, enterprises scale expanded further. And the overall market size and competition pressure of printing and dyeing industry are expected to increase. In addition, current printing and dyeing mills have slack orders, and homogenization competition is common, resulting in weak increase of dyeing fees. Operating rate of printing and dyeing mills especially those produce knitting products dropped evidently as upstream warp knitting and circular knitting enterprises saw poor orders and grey fabric mills witnessed high inventory and losses, which directly led to bleak business of dyeing mills.

Generally speaking, both textile enterprises and printing and dyeing mills were challenging in dull season of 2019, and product upgrading may be the only way to grasp price control, improve their profits and stand out from the industry.