Analysis Of Global Textile And Garment Trade Characteristics In Recent 5 Years

Today, with economic structural recovery, global

Facing a series of new internal and external situations: emerging economies are gradually becoming the import market for consumer goods, the rising cost of manufacturing labor in China and the promulgation and implementation of a number of heavyweight free trade area agreements, all of which have rewritten the global textile and garment industry to a certain extent.

And what are some of the factors that are deeply affecting the global textile and apparel supply chain? What factors will become the reliable basis for judging the trend of global textile and garment trade? Although the global economic trend is still uncertain, by analyzing the characteristics of the global textile and garment trade in the past 5 years, we may be able to judge the trend of the industry.

Textile trade is highly sensitive to economic fluctuations.

Since the abolition of quotas in 2005, global textiles

The trend showed a great fluctuation.

It is not difficult to find out the trend rules, and the global textile and clothing trade is in sync with the world economic development and highly sensitive to economic fluctuations.

According to the latest annual statistics released by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the growth rate of global textile and clothing exports in 2005~2011 is basically consistent with the trend of world economic growth.

When the world economy is in a relatively fast growth stage (such as 2005~2007), the textile and clothing trade also shows steady growth.

In 2008~2010, the world economy plunged into a financial crisis and trade scale plummeted. In 2009, exports of textiles and clothing decreased by 15.5% and 13.2% respectively.

It is noteworthy that the global textile and clothing trade is more important.

Volatility is even more acute.

For example, in 2011, the world economic growth rate dropped from 5.2% in 2010 to 3.9%, while global textile and garment exports shrank by 25.7% and 30.4% respectively.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with the current production mode of textile and apparel "global manufacturing".

Because of the "streamlined production" among countries, the scale of "intermediate goods trade" can be several times that of finished goods trade. When the demand for terminal products changes, the trade activities in the entire supply chain are all affected by chain, and the shock effect is magnified.

This also reflects that the global textile and garment industry is increasingly characterized by "one glory, one glory, one damage".

In addition, according to the latest world economic outlook released by the International Monetary Fund, the growth rate of the world economy will further slow down to 3.5% in 2012, affected by the European debt crisis, indicating that the global textile and garment trade in 2012 will still be at a low ebb.

Geographical factors determine industrial advantages

In recent years, in the process of changing the import and export pattern of global textiles and clothing, Europe, Asia and the Americas have further controlled the export of textile and clothing, and the influence of geographical location on the trade pattern is increasingly prominent.

As of 2010, Asia, Europe and North America accounted for 94.2% of the total global textile exports, while Asia, Europe and South America and Central America accounted for 92.9% of the total global garment exports. The trend of export to the above regions was particularly evident since the 2008 financial crisis.

Geographical location has become an important factor affecting the global textile and clothing trade pattern in the quota free era.

On the one hand, in Europe, Asia and the Americas, a relatively mature and stable regional textile and garment production and trade network has been formed at present. That is to say, the countries in the region form vertical division of labor according to their respective comparative advantages and textile industry development stages, such as product design, textile raw material production and garment processing, and the finished products also have a considerable scale of effective demand in the region.

In contrast, countries such as Africa and Oceania are excluded from the main regional textile and garment production and trade network because they are far from the terminal consumer market or unable to supply textile materials themselves, and their exports are at a competitive disadvantage.

On the other hand, with the impasse of the WTO Doha round, countries have turned to regional free trade agreements, which further consolidated and strengthened the operation of the regional textile and garment production and trade network.

Correspondingly, the influence of labor cost factors on the global textile and clothing trade pattern will be weakened in the future.

Garment consumption relies on Core Market

Textile import market diversification

At present, the global garment import market is still concentrated in the European Union, the United States and Japan, and the textile import market is diversified.

In 2006~2010, the proportion of the three major traditional markets in the European Union, the United States and Japan, which accounted for the total proportion of global clothing imports, basically stabilized at 74%~78%, indicating that the level of income still has a decisive impact on clothing consumption demand.

Although some emerging economies have begun to expand clothing import and consumption in recent years, their total imports still have a large gap compared with developed countries.

For example, in 2010, although the average import volume of BRIC clothing increased by more than 11% (the growth rate of imports in China and Brazil was 36% and 40% respectively), the total import volume of the four countries accounted for only 3.1% of the world's total imports.

This shows that although the consumer market outlook of emerging economies is generally highly regarded, it should not be overestimated in terms of its pulling effect on global clothing consumption.

On the other hand, the global textile import market in 2006~2010 mainly includes the European Union, the United States, China and Hongkong, China. However, its share of global textile imports has been decreasing year by year, and over 52.74% of the demand for imports comes from other regions, especially those with no self-sufficiency in textiles.

{page_break}

New changes in industrial structure

Developing countries are facing challenges

At present, although textile and clothing are still the main opportunities for many developing countries to participate in international trade, the road of industrial upgrading in developing countries is very difficult.

Compared to other industrial manufactured goods, textile and clothing are still labor-intensive. With the development of economy, the share of technology intensive and capital intensive products will continue to increase.

Therefore, from a global perspective, the proportion of textiles and clothing accounted for only 1.7% and 2.4% of global merchandise trade in 2010, compared with 4% and 5.4% in 2005.

Textiles and clothing are still the most important export opportunities of many developing countries (see Table 3).

For example, in 2010, textile and clothing accounted for 68.4% of the low income countries (annual per capita national income was less than 1005 U.S. dollars), and the proportion of goods exports averaged 68.4%, accounting for an average of 27.2% of the middle low income countries (annual per capita national income between US dollars).

At the same time, developing countries are also facing the dilemma of being locked in the low end of the global textile and apparel industry chain for a long time, especially the development level of their textile industry is hard to be improved.

From table 3, we can further find that in 2005~2010, the ratio of textile / clothing exports in low and middle income countries (that is, the vast majority of developing countries) has not only failed to grow slowly but according to the traditional textile industry development theory.

The proportion of high-income countries, namely the developed countries such as the United States and Europe, rose from 2.4 in 2005 to 2.7 in 2010, reflecting the shift of its industrial structure to capital and technology intensive textiles.

In the context of high vertical division of labor, how to expand garment export based on comparative advantage and gradually get rid of dependence on imported textiles and achieve industrial upgrading through import substitution has become a common problem faced by developing countries.

"Made in China" is under pressure.

China's textile and clothing exports are difficult to shake, but export advantages are beginning to squeeze.

From the total point of view, China's exports of textiles and clothing reached 77 billion US dollars and US $129 billion 800 million respectively in 2010, ranking the first in the world.

However, from the perspective of market share, China's textile and clothing export advantages are facing unprecedented extrusion.

For example, the share of China's textile exports in 2010 has dropped from 28.3% in 2009 to 26%.

In terms of clothing, although China's global market share continued to rise from 34% in 2009 to 36.9% in 2010, its market share declined by nearly 3 percentage points in the US market. Correspondingly, the market share of Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries increased steadily.

With the appreciation of the renminbi and the increase in domestic production costs, the price competitive advantage of China's textile and clothing exports will continue to be weakened in the coming years, and the market share may further decline.