Industry Observation: Focus On The International Market Situation Of China'S Textile Industry In The First Half Of The Year

Since this year, China's textile industry has faced a complex external situation. Risk factors such as weak demand in overseas markets and intensified international trade friction have led to a significant increase in the instability and uncertainty of the industry's international trade environment. However, thanks to the industry's own industrial advantages of complete system, efficient collaboration and global leading manufacturing advantages, the international market competitiveness of the industry continued to release. In the first half of the year, the share of China's textile and clothing in the import market of the United States and the European Union increased slightly, and its share in the import market of Japan decreased slightly.

Figure 1: Changes in China's share of major textile and clothing import markets in the United States, Japan and the EU

Data source: OTEXA, Japan Customs, Eurostat

According to the data from the Office of Textiles and Clothing of the US Department of Commerce (OTEXA), the amount of textiles and clothing imported by the US from the world in the first half of the year totaled US $49.35 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 3.6%, of which US $11.13 billion was imported from China, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%. China's import market in the US accounted for 22.6%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over the same period last year. Among the major import source countries, the market share of textiles and clothing imported from Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Turkey has increased compared with the same period last year. In the first half of the year, the amount of textiles and clothing imported from these countries by the United States was US $7.2 billion, US $4.8 billion, US $1.84 billion and US $1.21 billion respectively, and the market share of imports in the United States was 14.6%, 9.7%, 3.7% and 2.5% respectively, They increased by 0.4, 0.6, 0.1 and 0.1 percentage points over the same period last year. However, the market share of textile and clothing imports from Bangladesh and Indonesia has declined. In the first half of the year, Bangladesh's import market share in the United States declined 0.6 percentage points to 7.1%, and Indonesia's import market share in the United States declined 0.2 percentage points to 4.5%.

From the change of market share of textile and clothing products imported by the United States from major global markets, China's fabrics, textile products and chemical fiber products classified by raw materials are competitive in the U.S. import market. In the first half of the year, the market share of the above products imported by the United States from China was 17.8%, 37.3% and 29.8%, respectively, 1.8, 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points higher than the same period last year, Ranking first; The competitiveness of China's clothing import market in the United States remained stable. In the first half of the year, China accounted for 19.1% of the import market, which was the same as the same period last year. However, under the influence of the so-called "Xinjiang related Act", China's market share of cotton products and yarn products has increased year on year, but it is inferior to India and Turkey, both ranking second. In the first half of the year, the import market share of China's cotton products in the United States was 13.8%, while that of India rose to 15.4% over the same period; China's yarn import market share in the United States was 12.2%, while Turkey's share rose to 13.7% over the same period. India's wool products exceeded China's as the largest importer in the United States. In the first half of the year, the United States imported 16.7% of wool products from India, an increase of 1 percentage point over the same period of the previous year, 0.2 percentage points higher than China's share.

Figure 2: Changes in China's import market competitiveness of textile products in the United States

Data source: OTEXA

Figure 3: Changes in the share of China and other major emerging markets in the US clothing import market

Data source: OTEXA

According to Japanese customs data, in the first half of the year, Japan imported about 15.29 billion dollars of textiles and clothing from the world, up 4.7% year on year, including 7.7 billion dollars of imports from China, up 1.4% year on year. China's import market share in Japan was 50.4%, down 1.7 percentage points year on year. Under the effect of a lower base in the same period of last year, Japan's textile and clothing imports from major markets showed a trend of general growth, with the import amount and market share from Vietnam and Cambodia rising rapidly. In the first half of the year, Japan imported US $2.41 billion of textiles and clothing from Vietnam, up 11.3% year on year. Vietnam's import market share in Japan rose 0.9 percentage points to 15.7% year on year; The amount of textile and clothing imports from Cambodia was US $610 million, up 20.9% year on year. Cambodia's import market share in Japan increased by 0.5% to 4% year on year.

According to Eurostat data, from January to May, the amount of textile and clothing imports from the 27 EU countries from outside the EU totaled US $50.74 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%, of which the amount of imports from China was US $13.78 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 4.5%. China accounted for 27.1% of the EU's imports from outside the EU, a slight increase of 0.2 percentage points over the same period last year. The import amount of textiles and clothing from other major emerging markets of the EU has generally decreased. From January to May, the import amount of textiles and clothing from Bangladesh, Turkey, India and Indonesia decreased by 5%, 7.9%, 5.6% and 12.5% respectively year on year. The above four countries accounted for 16.8%, 12.5%, 6.6% and 1.1% of the EU's import market, including Turkey The market shares of India and Indonesia declined by 0.4, 0.1 and 0.1 percentage points respectively compared with the same period last year, while the market shares of Bangladesh were the same as the same period last year.

(Source: Niu Shuangxin, China Textile Industry Economic Research Institute)