At its 17th Annual General Meeting, David Roberts, Chairman, National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), presented an overview of the US textile industry. Roberts outlined the industry’s efforts in producing PPE in the face of a once-in-a-life time pandemic. He also presented the US textile supply chain, economic, trade data, and NCTO’s 2020 policy priorities for domestic textile manufacturers. NCTO is Washington, DC-based trade association that represents domestic textile manufacturers

Roberts is CEO of Cap Yarns Inc, a South Carolina specialty yarn manufacturer and a leader in developing unique yarns for the knitting and weaving industry. NCTO’s annual meeting was held virtually on March 23-24.

The meeting also highlighted the US employs around 530,000 people in the textile industry in 2020. The country exported apparels and textiles worth $64.4 billion in 2020. Its exports of fiber, textiles and apparel were $25.4 billion in 2020. Capital expenditures for textiles and apparel production totaled $2.38 billion in 2019, the last year for which data is available.