Surgical Masks: the New Battleground for Textile Industry

With most of society worldwide becoming more and more accustomed to wearing masks in the post-pandemic era, it has become a must-have accessory, attracting domestic textile firms into production.

Traditional textile firms, such as Eclat Textile, Makalot, Far Eastern New Century, Everest, Roo Hsing, and QVE, have begun making masks, reports say. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to fewer consumers venturing out to purchase, leading to lower sales and a lukewarm clothing market. Textile firms turned to masks, in hot demand worldwide, to make up the deficit.

Many clients are requesting fashionable and environmentally-friendly masks, textile firms reported, meaning prices will likely be par with clothing. With masks in such huge demand, firms say gross margin profit will be much higher than their traditional means of revenue.

Textile heavyweight Makalot is seeing a return to pre-pandemic sales prompted by increasing orders in European and American markets as lockdown orders are lessened. What's more, is that Makalot was able to benefit from making medical protective gear early on.

As an existing global supplier of medical PE/PP and PE/PET composite fiber, Far Eastern New Century holds key material technologies and supply. It is also Taiwan's only supplier of the interior material fabric of surgical masks. The firm has lowered the need for using nonwoven fabric to make the center fabric layer of masks by introducing a new, finer fiber.