A 35.44% year-on-year rise in polyester staple fiber deserves more attention than its modest 0.64% weekly gain. According to Chinese customs and publicly available industry data, textile commodity prices during week 39 of 2026 (September 28 to October 2) showed a mildly upward trend on a weekly basis, but the year-on-year dimension has accumulated to a magnitude that should alter procurement decisions.
Weekly Price Map: Moderate Sequential, Aggressive Annual
On a weekly basis, the textile sector presented a mixed picture. Polyester staple fiber led with a 0.64% gain, PTA followed at 0.46%, raw silk and cotton yarn 32S each edged up 0.20%, and cotton yarn 21S rose 0.14%. Only two categories declined: acrylonitrile fell 0.46% and cotton slipped 0.07%. The sector's average weekly change was a mere 0.07%, seemingly uneventful.
Yet year-on-year figures reveal a completely different landscape. PTA surged 59.46% year-on-year, nylon POY rose 38.88%, polyester FDY gained 37.36%, polyester POY climbed 36.19%, polyester staple fiber advanced 35.44%, and acrylonitrile increased 35.07%. Even relatively moderate gainers like viscose staple fiber and cotton yarn 21S posted year-on-year increases of 11.13% and 6.04% respectively. This means the cost baseline for textile raw materials has shifted systematically upward over the past year.
Notably, most categories were flat for the week — polyester yarn, viscose staple fiber, spandex, rayon yarn, polyester POY, polyester DTY, polyester FDY, nylon DTY, nylon FDY, and nylon POY all held steady. This broad flatness is not a signal of market stability but rather a temporary standoff between buyers and sellers in price negotiations.
What the Annual-Sequential Gap Means
The combination of mild sequential movement and aggressive annual gains affects different segments of the textile chain very differently. For upstream chemical fiber and PTA producers, large year-on-year increases mean the profit recovery window continues. But for midstream weavers and downstream garment makers, raw material costs have risen over 30% year-on-year while terminal retail prices have not kept pace — margin compression has persisted for a considerable period.
From an industrial cluster perspective, factories in chemical fiber fabric hubs like Keqiao and Shengze generally report that procurement strategies are shifting from just-in-time buying to small-batch, multi-frequency purchasing to reduce inventory devaluation risk. The Nantong home textile cluster is particularly sensitive to cotton yarn prices. Cotton yarn 32S is up 5.52% year-on-year, and while that magnitude is modest, combined with labor and energy costs, the room for raising export quotations for home textiles is already very limited.
Cotton is up 16.92% year-on-year but edged down 0.07% for the week, suggesting the cotton market is in a wait-and-see phase ahead of new crop arrivals. Acrylonitrile is up 35.07% year-on-year yet fell 0.46% weekly, hinting that some chemical fiber monomers may face short-term supply loosening. Raw silk remains in negative territory year-on-year at -4.65%, one of the few declining categories in the textile sector, reflecting persistently weak silk end-demand.
Practical Impact on Procurement and Export
Under the current price structure, the core contradiction facing textile exporters is that raw material costs have risen substantially year-on-year while overseas buyers' willingness to accept price increases remains limited. For polyester products in particular, fully passing through a 35%-plus raw material increase would significantly weaken the price competitiveness of Chinese goods in international markets. Some orders may shift to alternative origins like Vietnam and India, though these regions also rely on imported raw materials with potentially similar cost pressures.
For factories, the most urgent task is not predicting price direction but managing the raw material inventory cycle. In a market characterized by high annual gains and stalled sequential movement, the risk of chasing prices and stockpiling far outweighs the benefit of waiting for a correction.