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Friday 21 February 2014

A textile renaissance in the US?

Bill Smith reports from South Carolina


On Tuesday, Japan’s Toray Industries announced it would invest $1 billion in a new carbon fibre manufacturing facility in South Carolina. There has also been a lot of recent press coverage about the revival of the US textiles industry and the ‘Made in America’ movement. 



So, is the textiles industry coming back to the U.S then? It never really left, argues Bill Smith, and Asian companies are moving in to get a share of one of the world’s largest markets for textiles and textile related products.

In the 1950s, things stamped “made in Japan” were generally considered inferior. They gained in the quality arena, taking a large share of the textile industry from US producers, causing many to shutter their plants.