Analysis Of China'S Textile And Apparel Exports In The First Three Quarters And Outlook For The Future

According to the Statistics Center of China Textile Industry Association, in the first three quarters of this year, China's textile and clothing exports continued to grow rapidly since last year.

Since the beginning of this year, the momentum of rapid growth in the export volume of textiles and garments has changed from quantity driven to price driven.

According to the General Administration of customs, the average price of China's exports increased by 9.9% in the first three quarters, and the actual export volume increased by 11.7% after deducting price factors.

Among them, the export price of textile and clothing increased by 20.9%, and the actual export volume increased by only 2.8% after the price factor was deducted.

Among them, factors such as raw materials, labor and other comprehensive costs have led to the increase in prices, and also the relative rise in bargaining power of the whole product.

The main export products, chemical fiber yarn, chemical fiber fabrics and industrial textiles outstanding performance, exports in the first three quarters increased by 44.4%, 37.8% and 34.6%, respectively.

The export volume of knitted garments and woven garments were stable. The export volume in the first three quarters increased by 25% and 20.9% respectively, of which the chemical fiber knitted garments and chemical fiber woven garments increased by 28.7% and 32.1% respectively.

The increase in export volume is mainly driven by rising export prices, which means that the export volume of many products has stagnated or even declined compared with that of the previous year, of which cotton products are more prominent.

In the first three quarters, the export volume of cotton yarn, cotton, cotton knitted apparel and cotton woven garments decreased by 24.5%, 3.3%, 3.1% and 10.5%, respectively.

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Traditional market weighs ahead.

This year, 1~9, the European Union, the United States, Japan, ASEAN and China Hongkong are the top five export markets of China's textile and apparel industry.

The total share of the top five markets accounted for 62.6% of the total exports.

Since the beginning of this year, the uncertainties of China's top three export market economic growth have increased.

The fiscal deficit and debt problems in Europe and the United States have worsened, and Japan's economy has been affected by the earthquake.

In the first three quarters, China's textile exports to the EU reached US $42 billion 770 million, an increase of 25.8% over the same period last year, of which exports of textiles and clothing were US $9 billion 780 million and US $32 billion 990 million respectively, up 20% and 27.7% respectively over the same period last year.

Under the background of the European sovereign debt crisis being constantly fermented and the overall consumption is weak, this performance is hard won.

According to the statistics of the European Union statistics bureau, the retail sales volume of the EU 27 countries increased by 0.6% in July 2011, with a year-on-year increase of only 1%, which shows that the share of Chinese textiles in the EU market continues to increase.

In the US market, due to the high unemployment rate and the stagnation of residents' income, the consumers' willingness to consume is not strong, and the export growth of China's textile and clothing has obviously slowed down compared with last year.

Customs statistics show that China's textile exports to the US in the first three quarters amounted to US $29 billion 920 million, an increase of 12.3% over the same period last year, a growth rate of 18 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year.

Exports of textiles and clothing were 8 billion 490 million US dollars and 21 billion 430 million US dollars respectively, up 9.9% and 13.7% respectively over the same period last year.

Affected by the earthquake, Japan's economic performance has not improved substantially this year. In 2011 1~8, the sales volume of clothing sales in Japanese large department stores and supermarkets was 29812 billion yen, down 4.9% compared with the same period last year. Under this background, China's export performance to Japan is outstanding.

In the first three quarters, China's export to Japan swept the stagnant growth situation for the first two years, and its export volume reached US $20 billion 610 million, an increase of 25.5% over the same period last year, an increase of 23 percentage points over the same period last year.

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Opportunities and competition exist in emerging markets

It is worth mentioning that in the first three quarters of this year, ASEAN formally surpassed Hongkong and became the fourth largest export market of China's textiles. The rapid growth of China's exports to ASEAN marked the effect of reducing bilateral tariffs in China ASEAN Free Trade Area.

In 1~9 months, China exported $14 billion 430 million to ASEAN, an increase of 41.3% over the same period last year, an increase of nearly 3 percentage points over the same period last year.

Textiles and clothing were exported by US $10 billion 540 million and US $3 billion 890 million respectively, representing an increase of 41% and 42.2% respectively over the same period.

Although the export of ASEAN's textile and clothing has shown a good momentum, with the cost competitive advantages of ASEAN and other Southeast Asian countries highlighted, there is also a competitive relationship between China's textile exports and these emerging trading partners.

In recent years, Southeast Asian countries, represented by Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh, have shown good export momentum.

According to WTO statistics, in 1990 ~2009, Bangladesh's clothing exports accounted for 0.6% of world clothing exports from 3.4% to 3.4%; in 2000, Vietnam's clothing exports accounted for 0.9% of world garment exports from 2.7% to 2.7%.

According to the US Department of Commerce, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia showed better exports to the United States in 1~8 months this year.

Objectively speaking, these countries have the advantages of low labor cost and high quality in the field of garment processing. Therefore, it is also appropriate to obtain a large number of international clothing orders. However, statistics in recent years do not impede the development of China's garment industry, let alone replace them completely or pose a major threat.

On the other hand, the development of garment processing industry in these countries has led to the export of related accessories and accessories in China.

On the whole, China and these countries maintain a trade partnership with cooperation and competition.

External demand growth inflexion or now

Excluding the Spring Festival factor, the export of textiles and garments in China has maintained a relatively stable growth trend in 1~8 months this year. However, in September, the growth rate declined. The growth rate of textile exports fell to 16.5% in the same month, and the growth rate of clothing exports dropped to 13.8%.

This signal indicates that there may be an inflection point in the growth trend of China's textile and clothing industry.

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At present, the global macroeconomic trend has reached a critical stage.

Due to the excessive consumption of the financial crisis in 2008, the operation space of the major economies in stimulating economic growth and increasing employment opportunities through the new monetary and fiscal policies has been significantly reduced.

At present, the benchmark interest rates of major developed economies such as the US, Europe, Japan and other countries remain at a low historical level, with a small decrease and precautions against inflation.

At the same time, countries' fiscal deficits are worrying, and the US debt has been downgraded by credit. The sovereign credit crisis in the euro area has spread from Greece to larger economies like Spain and Italy, and threatens the survival of the euro.

The two bottom of the global economy is not a lie.

Following the IMF's latest world economic outlook in September, which lowered the economic growth rate of the world's major economies in the next two years, the Fed also sharply lowered the forecast for the US economy in the next two years in November 3rd, and estimated that the unemployment rate in the United States will remain above 9% at the end of this year, and that it can only be improved to 8.5%~8.7% in 2012.

In view of this, the developed economies, the major demand countries of China's textile and clothing products, will have a much weaker economy and high unemployment rate in the coming year.

Therefore, there is no possibility of rapid growth in short-term and external market demand, or even a grim situation of year-on-year decline.

Recently, WTO predicted that the growth rate of Global trade in goods will drop to 5.8% this year, a drop of about 16 percentage points over the growth rate of 22% last year.

The trend of the overall economic growth of the world is slowing down, which inevitably leads to the prospect of trade which is not optimistic.

In addition, under the current global economic situation and the two probabilities increasing, the potential trade friction threat from developing and developed countries must also attract the attention of the industry.

As China's main competitor in the European market, Turkey has adopted safeguards for some of our fabrics and clothing this year, which has seriously damaged the interests of enterprises.

Since this year, Brazil and Argentina in South America have focused on the Chinese textile and garment industry as a result of the poor domestic textile industry.

The dual counter investigation from the US and Europe has always been a threat and political weight.

Industry organizations and export enterprises should prepare for the relevant litigation.