BLOW TO JAPAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1938, Page 5

BLOW TO JAPAN

USE OF SILK SUBSTITUTE IN U.S.A. a LOSS OF HUGE MARKET PRODUCTION OF SYNTHETIC FIBRE By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK, October 21. A major upheaval in Japan’s economic position through the loss' of the huge United States market for raw silk is predicted by hosiery producers here when the Celanese Corporation of America, manufacturers of the acetate process yarns and fabrics, announced the erection in Virginia of a 10,000,000dollar plant to produce an entirely new synthetic yarn which can be used in all textile fields.

It is also announced that Duponts are building a 7,000,000-dollar plant at. Delaware to produce a new synthetic fibre, also adaptable to various textile uses, but intended chiefly for hosiery, which is virtually the only division of textiles in which rayon has not yet seriously made inroads. Hosiery, specially feminine hosiery has remained nearly the exclusive outlet for raw silk, because the synthetic yarns hitherto produced have been too lustrous, too inelastic, and with insufficient sheer. Experiments with the Dupont yarn, however, has been successful in producing hosiery able to compete with all grades of silk stockings, and retailing at a dollar or less. It will be a year before either yarn is ..commercially ready. It is estimated that three-fourths of the 100,000,000 dollars’ worth of raw' silk imported annually is used in hosiery, which illustrates the extent oi the Japanese loss if the new yarns justify expectations. ___