Textile And Clothing Export Growth In The First Half Of The Year Driven By Epidemic Prevention Materials

Since 2020, with the spread of new pneumonia in the world and the aggravation of its impact, the global economy has been declining. Enterprise layoffs, rising unemployment rate, insufficient consumption of residents, lack of personnel and poor logistics have led to many aspects of the global supply chain blocked, international trade and investment significantly reduced, different economic sectors in the world are facing downward risks, and China's export trade has also declined significantly. According to customs data, from January to June 2020, China's export trade volume reached 1098.75 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 6.2%.

In the face of the general decline of Global trade market demand and the severe test of domestic and foreign epidemic situation, as a major country producing epidemic prevention materials, China's production capacity of key medical materials such as protective clothing and masks has rapidly recovered. While fully ensuring the domestic epidemic prevention and control needs, it also sent export support from China for global epidemic prevention and control. Driven by the significant increase in the export of anti epidemic materials such as masks and protective clothing, China's textile and clothing exports achieved a positive growth for the first time in this year. According to the data of China's customs express, from January to June 2020, China's export of textiles and clothing reached 125.19 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%, and the growth rate increased by 5.6 percentage points compared with the same period of last year.

Meeting international epidemic prevention needs and highlighting China's responsibility

At present, the epidemic situation of new crown pneumonia is still spreading all over the world, and the medical protection materials in some disaster areas are still in short supply. The new production capacity of masks, protective clothing and other medical materials realized in the anti epidemic stage in China is still playing an active role. Enterprises with rich production capacity also have the ability to actively export masks and other medical protection products. From March 1 to May 31, China exported 70.6 billion masks to 200 countries and regions around the world, according to the white paper "China action against new crown pneumonia".

From the perspective of key export markets, the EU, the United States and Japan have significantly increased their dependence on China's import of anti epidemic materials such as masks. According to the data of Eurostat, from January to April in 2020, 27 EU countries imported 4.76 billion euro masks from China, an increase of 11.8 times over the same period of last year; according to the data of the US Customs and the Ministry of finance of Japan, from January to may 2020, the United States and Japan imported 5.59 billion US dollars and 267.84 billion yen of masks from China, increasing by 4.7 times and 1.6 times respectively on a year-on-year basis. At the same time, China accounted for 89.2% and 93.9% of the import market share of masks in the United States and Japan, respectively, which fully met the demand of epidemic prevention materials in relevant key export markets.

The trend of clothing export is not declining

Despite the rapid decline in the demand for traditional clothing products, such as clothing and masks, the overall demand for textiles and masks continued to decline. Also makes this year, China's clothing exports continue to decline. According to the customs data, from January to June 2020, China's clothing export volume reached 51.08 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 19.4%, still continued the downward trend, and its proportion in the total textile and clothing exports in the same period rapidly dropped to 40.8%.

As the key export market of China's clothing products, the whole line has declined. From January to may 2020, China's clothing exports to the United States decreased by 34.49%, to the EU by 17.06%, to Japan by 9.28%, and to countries along the belt and road by 20.27%.

In the future, the export growth rate or callback of epidemic prevention materials should be highly concerned by relevant enterprises

Although the epidemic is still spreading all over the world and the global demand for epidemic prevention materials is still huge, with the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation, it is expected that the export growth rate of anti epidemic products such as masks and protective clothing may slow down in the future.

Take the European Union as an example. In March this year, affected by the spread of the epidemic, the European Union issued a relevant export ban to ensure that there is sufficient supply of personal protective equipment such as masks. On May 26, the EU officially lifted the export ban on personal protective equipment. This gives us a signal that the European Union's demand for anti epidemic materials such as masks is gradually declining. Therefore, the production enterprises of epidemic prevention materials with the EU as the main market may need to reduce the production capacity appropriately, and the relevant export enterprises of epidemic prevention materials need to pay more attention to the market demand trend of the European Union and be ready for response.

At the same time, the international market consumption of clothing products is very low, and the export pressure of China's clothing products in the future is still large. According to statistics, from January to may, the retail sales of clothing and apparel in the United States decreased by 47.8% year-on-year; that of the European Union in May decreased by 77.8%; and from January to may, the retail sales of clothing and apparel in Japan decreased by 27.1%.

On the whole, the overall export pressure of China's textiles and clothing is still large.