Lycra Opens Second, Now Largest, Spandex Plant in China

The Lycra Company is gaining crushed connected the Chinese marketplace arsenic the planetary fibre shaper has opened its largest spandex accumulation works worldwide successful the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China.

Backed by an concern of 800 cardinal Chinese renminbi ($112 million) and located successful the eponymous prefecture-level city, the Yinchuan works was collaboratively created with the Yinchuan Financial Capital Investment Group, a state-owned concern and financing institution focused connected municipality improvement and superior operations.

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The Ningxia Province works has an archetypal output capableness of 30,000 tons of spandex accumulation capacity—what Lycra said volition make immoderate 500 jobs and make implicit 1 cardinal Chinese renminbi ($140.7 million) a year—for now. The plant’s capableness is expected to grow to implicit 120,000 tons per twelvemonth arsenic The Lycra Company works to support gait portion arsenic enabling faster and suppler proviso concatenation solutions, the sustainable fibre steadfast said.

The further works some bolsters The Lycra Company’s continued concern into the Chinese marketplace portion besides underscoring its anticipated request successful the Asia Pacific portion astatine large, the Wilmington, Del.-headquartered institution said.

“China is strategically important, representing implicit 50 percent of the planetary apparel accumulation market,” said Gary Smith, CEO of The Lycra Company, expressing gratitude to the section authorities and interior partners for the endeavor. “This concern enables america to optimize our merchandise premix much broadly portion gathering the summation successful request for prime spandex.”

The works besides coagulates the company’s “expert absorption teams and planetary R&D capabilities” to found a “highly automated, intelligent accumulation ecosystem,” the institution said successful a statement. “Production astatine the Yinchuan installation volition align with the company’s sustainability framework, driving vigor savings, reducing emissions and advancing manufacturing processes, ensuring that concern maturation and biology work stay inextricably linked.”

For context, the Yinchuan works is Lycra’s 2nd tract successful China—the archetypal being Foshan.

Located successful the Guangdong province, the Foshan installation was inaugurated successful 2005 and employs immoderate 500 radical to nutrient Lycra fibre (for apparel) and Lycra’s HyFit fibre (for idiosyncratic attraction products). In 2022, Foshan earned a people successful the precocious quartile for its third-party audited Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM).