When daily price changes across textile commodities all read zero, the market often interprets it as calm—but year-on-year figures tell a far more turbulent story. On September 25, 2026, every monitored textile commodity in China's bulk market held steady versus the previous day, with a 0% daily change. Yet compared with a year earlier, most raw materials posted substantial gains: PTA surged 54.21%, acrylonitrile rose 36.10%, and polyester filament yarns broadly climbed over 30%. This "flat daily, soaring annual" pattern signals that the textile supply chain is being squeezed by both an upward shift in cost benchmarks and lackluster demand, steadily eroding factory margins.
The Illusion of Flat Prices vs. the Reality of Annual Gains
On a day-to-day basis, the textile sector was calm on September 25. Cotton stood at 17,399.17 yuan/ton, cotton yarn 21S and 32S held at 23,366.67 yuan/ton and 24,800 yuan/ton respectively, while polyester staple fiber, viscose staple fiber, and spandex showed no movement. But the annual picture is stark: upstream petrochemical raw materials have soared. PTA is up 54.21% year-on-year, acrylonitrile up 36.10%, and polyester POY, FDY, and DTY up 34.96%, 35.80%, and 31.46% respectively. Nylon series are equally strong, with nylon POY up 38.88%, FDY up 26.55%, and DTY up 29.83%. These double-digit annual increases are not driven by demand, but by earlier crude oil volatility, periodic plant maintenance, and a phased recovery in export markets.
For downstream factories, the year-on-year cost escalation means that even with prices stabilizing now, production carries a much heavier financial burden than a year ago. Polyester and nylon filament yarns, as key inputs for weaving, directly raise grey fabric costs, while the ability to pass these costs downstream to garment prices is weakening.
Profit Distribution Imbalance Hits Midstream Hardest
The current price plateau reflects a wait-and-see market. Upstream raw material suppliers maintain profits at elevated year-on-year levels, but midstream spinners and weavers face a "high-cost input, low-price output" dilemma. Cotton yarn prices are up only about 5% year-on-year, and raw silk has actually fallen 6.17%, in sharp contrast to the 30%-plus gains in chemical fibers. This divergence indicates a decoupling between natural and synthetic fiber performance: synthetics are supported by energy costs and export orders, while silk and similar categories suffer from weak consumption.
Viscose staple fiber is up 11.13% year-on-year, and spun rayon yarn up 6.97%—relatively modest gains reflecting a more balanced supply-demand picture in the regenerated cellulose market. Spandex, however, is up 19.59%, with downstream elastic fabric demand still decent but price transmission clearly weakening. Overall, midstream textile enterprises cannot fully pass cost pressures to downstream apparel brands, and profits are being severely eroded.
Differentiated Responses Across Regional Clusters
Chemical fiber fabric clusters like Keqiao and Shengze are most sensitive to polyester and nylon price swings. With raw material prices plateauing at high levels, local weavers are generally adopting low-inventory strategies, producing to order to avoid the risk of high-priced stockpiling. Some factories are shifting to differentiated products such as bio-based nylon and recycled polyester to enhance added value and absorb costs.
The Nantong home textile cluster is more influenced by cotton and viscose prices. Cotton is up 15.18% year-on-year, but cotton yarn gains are only 5%-6%, indicating that spinning mills' profits are compressed, and home textile enterprises face relatively manageable cost increases in yarn procurement. However, if cotton prices continue to rise after the new crop arrives, cost pressures will gradually emerge.
In foreign trade, RMB exchange rate fluctuations and shipping cost changes remain key variables affecting export orders. Elevated year-on-year raw material costs weaken the price competitiveness of some products, but competitors in Southeast Asia face the same input inflation, and Chinese enterprises still hold advantages in scale and quick-response capabilities.
Outlook: The Plateau Won't Last; Watch Demand Signals
In the short term, textile raw material prices lack strong upward momentum, as the downstream "Golden September and Silver October" peak season is underwhelming and terminal apparel consumption has not surged. But downside is also limited, with firm crude oil prices and the plant maintenance season supporting costs. The market is expected to remain range-bound in the coming weeks, with divergence among varieties intensifying.
In the medium term, if PTA and polyester filament year-on-year gains persist while cotton yarn fails to keep pace, supply chain profits will continue to concentrate upstream, potentially forcing midstream weaving and spinning to cut output or transform. Buyers should be alert to the risk of a sudden raw material price correction, while monitoring the impact of the new cotton crop on prices.