Russia pins high hopes on technical textiles

Russia plans to increase the domestic production volume of technical textiles by 30 per cent, compared to 2015, according to plans recently announced by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade. In recent years, the production of technical textiles has become one of the priorities for the Russian government, especially, due to the ever declining level of profitability of the Russian industry of traditional textiles.

The increase of the domestic technical textiles and nonwovens is also an acute need due to a recent decision of by the Russian government to refuse further imports from Turkey, because of the current tensions between the two countries, caused by the SU-24 military aircraft incident.

Till date, Turkey has been one of the largest suppliers of technical textile and nonwovens, which accounted for around 17-18 per cent in the overall structure of imports to Russia. However there is now a possibility that Turkey may lose its share in the Russian market in the coming years.

Russia plans to use the experience of some Arabic states, and in particular UAE and Saudi Arabia, which, thanks to large reserves of commodity petrochemicals, have significantly increased the volume of investments in the increase of production of synthetic textiles in recent years and even started its exports, (which are currently valued at $1 billion per year) abroad.

Russia has its own raw materials base, huge energy reserves, as well as access to the European market, which, according to analysts of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, makes the development of its synthetic textiles industry a promising direction for the light industry.

Despite the efforts of the state, current consumption of technical textiles in Russia significantly lags behind western countries (by 2-3 times), which means that industry has big potential for further growth. According to plans of the Russian Government, the domestic market of technical textiles should reach about 70 billion rubles ($1,5 billion) in value terms during the next few years. This will be achieved by the planned increase of its consumption by construction sector and other related industries.