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The production of chemical fibres has now reached 32 million tons. Production and demand are expected to double by the year 2020. Europe will not benefit directly from this growth, which will mainly affect Asian producers helped by low production and labour costs, but it will be able to keep its position and become stronger in highest value niches. There is a diversified strategy to face this challenge which should first and foremost continue to include strong investments in research, development and innovation of products and production processes, where European fibre manufacturers are currently investing 300 million Euro per year. A competitive advantage that European producers must exploit is that of customer service quality. Flexibility is another feature which is increasingly requested by European fibre users, which for vendors means short delivery times, small batches, quick production changes and a wide product portfolio rich in specialties. A significant role is definitely played by the evolution of textile products and surprising ideas come from observation of nature. 'Textile bionics' tries therefore to adopt solutions suggested by nature, such as the colouring of the wings of certain butterflies obtained not by means of coloured substances, but by the interference of light radiations on materials layers with different refraction indexes. It is possible to obtain coloured fibres by laying some material layers with different refraction indices, such as polyester and nylon each from 0.04 to 0.16 micron thick, according to the colour one want to obtain. The structure of shark skin, reproduced on the fabric of bathing costumes for instance, produces micro-turbulences when swimming, which reduces resistance to forward movement. Natural proteins extracted from plants are turned into fibre, while we are getting closer and closer to the opportunity to produce the fibrillar proteins of spider silk. For the production of antimony-free polymers, titanium-based catalysts provide the best results in terms of yield, polymer quality, cost and lower environmental impact. Intrinsically bioactive fibre are now offered by all manufacturers. New treatments for the increase of functions in textiles with special finishes are discussed. (Bilingual document: Italian/English)