Foreign Trade Information: Analysis Of China'S Textile And Garment Export Data In The First Quarter Of 2021

In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing exports showed a steady performance, with a year-on-year growth of 43.7%. The export volume exceeded the same period in 2019, with an average growth of 8.7% in two years. However, the current external environment is becoming more severe and complex, and major events have occurred frequently in just three months since the beginning of the year. The epidemic situation has not yet ended, market demand has not stabilized, Myanmar turmoil has caused damage to China's investment enterprises in Myanmar, the cotton problem in Xinjiang continues to ferment, the appreciation of RMB, and the soaring prices of raw materials all have a serious adverse impact on China's exports. In the absence of a stable market environment and trading environment, coupled with the rise of the year-on-year base, the export performance in the second quarter will be weaker than that in the first quarter, and the growth will slow down and tend to fall back year on year.

At present, the epidemic situation has been effectively contained in China. The vaccination work in China has been carried out in an orderly manner. More than 200 million injections have been inoculated in China. The United States and other developed countries are also promoting vaccination. However, the vaccination situation in some developing countries, including India and other countries, is relatively poor, which will take time for the global recovery. It is estimated that it will take one to two years for the world to get back on track.

The epidemic situation magnified the adverse factors in international politics and economy, triggered potential contradictions at all levels, and made the black swan incident appear continuously, which has caused certain adverse effects on China's textile and clothing industry. However, the epidemic has also carried out a test and reshuffle of global industries, which fully proves the tenacity and stability of China's textile and garment industry, and further strengthens the confidence of the industry and enterprises in the development. The current epidemic situation has been repeated in some countries, which hinders the reverse flow of orders that have just appeared. Orders from Europe, the United States, Japan and other key markets will once again delay the transfer speed and turn more to China.

China's enterprises should seize the opportunity to consolidate and then expand their market share in developed countries and slow down the speed of industrial transfer. At the same time, we should pay more attention to the epidemic trend and vaccination situation in Europe and the United States, grasp the trend and change trend of the big market, and timely adjust the production and trade strategies, so as to prepare for the post epidemic era and gain the first opportunity.

Export volume increased rapidly in the first quarter

In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing trade volume reached 73.38 billion US dollars, an increase of 40% year on year. Among them, exports reached 66.52 billion US dollars, an increase of 43.7 percent; Imports were $6.86 billion, up 12.1%, and the cumulative trade surplus was $59.67 billion, up 48.5%. In March, the textile and clothing trade volume reached 22.08 billion US dollars, up 22.1% year-on-year. Among them, exports reached 19.35 billion US dollars, up 22.7 percent; Imports were 2.73 billion US dollars, an increase of 18.5%. The trade surplus of the month was 16.62 billion US dollars, an increase of 23.4%.

The first quarter of last year was the outbreak period of China's epidemic, and the export once fell into a low ebb. Under the influence of low base and other factors, in the first quarter of this year, exports rebounded in an all-round way and achieved high-speed growth, with an increase of more than 40%. Due to the special situation of last year, we need to compare the data of this year from multiple periods and angles.

Compared with the same period in 2019, the export volume of textile and clothing in the first quarter of this year increased by 18.1%, including 19.4% for textiles and 17% for clothing; In terms of the average growth rate in the two years, the export volume of textile and clothing increased by 8.7%, including 9.2% for textiles and 8.2% for clothing; From a month on month basis, textile and clothing decreased by 3.3% compared with February, in which textiles increased by 7.1% and clothing decreased by 12.1%. With the increase of textiles, clothing began to fall.

The EU market demand rebounded most significantly

In the global epidemic lasted more than a year, China's textile and clothing export market structure has undergone some changes. The market share of some developed countries increased, such as the United States, Japan, as well as Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and so on. In addition, India's upward trend is obvious. In the first quarter, exports to India increased by 65%, and India's share of China's export market rose from 1.7% in 2019 to 2%. At the same time, the proportion of some original major export markets decreased significantly, such as Russia and Hong Kong, China, especially Hong Kong, China. The export to Hong Kong, China decreased by 11.4% in the first quarter, which was the only market in the top 30 to decline.

At present, the United States is China's largest export market, and its export volume to the United States has exceeded that of the 27 EU countries. In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing exports to the United States reached US $11.78 billion, up 81.7% year-on-year and 28.2% higher than the same period in 2019. Among them, the growth rate of key commodities of woven clothing was 48.1%, which was 5% lower than that in 2019, and it still did not return to the level before the epidemic.

In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing exports to the EU reached 10.15 billion US dollars, up 51% year-on-year and 29.9% higher than the same period in 2019. Among them, the key commodities of knitted and woven clothing increased by 39.2%, 16.6% compared with that in 2019.

In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing exports to Japan reached 5.19 billion US dollars, up 30.6% year-on-year and 8.5% higher than the same period in 2019. Among them, the growth rate of key commodities of knitwear clothing is 14.9%, which is 6.2% lower than that in 2019.

In the first quarter, China's textile and clothing exports to ASEAN reached US $10.21 billion, up 38.7% year-on-year and 20.6% higher than the same period in 2019. Among them, yarn fabrics of key commodities increased by 22.7%, 0.6% compared with that in 2019.

Due to the repeated outbreaks, although the share of Chinese products in the key markets fell down compared with last year's high, it did not continue to decline, and at present it remains stable or fluctuates slightly. From January to February, the United States imported US $20.02 billion from the world, an increase of 7.9%, an increase of 35% from China, with China accounting for 32.2%, of which textiles accounted for 38.4% and clothing accounted for 29.8%, both higher than the same period in 2020, but lower than the same period in 2019. From January to February, Japan's imports from China accounted for 56.2%, of which textiles and clothing accounted for 59.2% and 55.2% respectively, both exceeding the levels of the same period last year and 2019.

Clothing exports grow faster than textiles

In the first quarter, with the slow recovery of consumer demand in major markets, the export of clothing began to accelerate, with an increase of 47.5% and 40% respectively on a year-on-year basis.

As the key epidemic prevention materials masks and protective clothing are still in the high-speed growth stage in the first quarter (145% and 225.6% respectively), it is necessary to peel off the epidemic prevention materials to see the actual situation of textile and clothing export. After removing masks, textile exports increased by 31.5% year-on-year, 8.6% over the same period in 2019; After removing protective clothing, clothing exports increased by 44.5% year-on-year, 14.3% compared with the same period in 2019. From the perspective of product categories, the export of needle woven clothing in clothing increased by 36.7% year-on-year, 7.4% compared with the same period in 2019, yarn and fabric in textiles increased by 15.8% and 23.5% respectively, compared with that in 2019, fabric increased slightly by 0.7% and yarn decreased by 0.8%.

In March last year, China began to export large-scale epidemic prevention materials, and maintained a year of rapid growth. In March this year, the export volume of epidemic prevention materials was still at a high level, but the growth rate gradually dropped. The export of masks and protective clothing increased by 5.8% and 96% respectively in the same month, which was significantly lower than the previous growth level. From the second quarter, the export of epidemic prevention materials will show a year-on-year negative growth.

The export performance of central and western provinces is outstanding

In the first quarter, all 31 provinces and cities (autonomous regions) in China achieved rapid growth except Tibet, and the performance of central and western regions remained outstanding. The eastern, central and western regions and the three northeastern provinces increased by 41.5%, 79.1%, 52.3% and 7.9% respectively. From a single month perspective, the growth rate of exports in March was significantly lower than that in the previous two months. Among the top five export provinces and cities, the growth rate of Zhejiang and Jiangsu shrank to a single digit, and Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian also fell to varying degrees.

The trend of clothing import is obvious

In sharp contrast to exports, textile and clothing imports in March still showed a month on month upward trend. In the same month, the import of textile and clothing increased by 18.5% year-on-year and 58.7% month on month. The growth was mainly driven by clothing. Under the epidemic situation, the purchase of imported clothing and other high-end consumer goods became the first choice of people who could not go abroad for shopping. In the same month, the import of clothing increased by 56.8% (in the same period, the import of cosmetics, shoes and bags of light industry also increased by more than 50%). In the first quarter, clothing imports increased by 52.7%. In textiles, the import of fabrics and finished products all decreased. Yarn, mainly cotton yarn, kept growing. In the first quarter, the cumulative import volume and value of cotton yarn increased by 21.5% and 21.2% respectively, and the average import price increased by 7.6%.

Cotton imports continue to grow at a high level

In the first quarter, cotton imports increased rapidly, with 971000 tons of cotton imported from the world, an increase of 58.2% over the first quarter of last year. Among them, the United States was the largest source of imports, with an accumulative import of 430000 tons from the United States, an increase of 2.5 times, and the proportion of American cotton was as high as 44.3%. Brazil and India followed the United States. As the fourth largest source of cotton imports in China, it has become a major source of cotton imports.

In March, driven by the decline in commodity prices, cotton prices at home and abroad showed a downward trend. The operating rate of textile enterprises remained at a high level, and the market purchase and sales were smooth. Enterprises took advantage of the decline in cotton prices to make up stocks at low prices. The raw material inventory increased slightly, and the commercial inventory continued to decline. The cotton transportation volume in Xinjiang increased, and the inventory in Xinjiang decreased significantly. On March 31, the rotation of central reserve cotton was completed. Due to the price difference between internal and external cotton, the rotation of reserve cotton was not started. According to the survey results of China Cotton Association, the intended area of cotton planting in China was 43.6755 million mu, a year-on-year decrease of 4.99%, and a decrease of 4.4 percentage points compared with the previous period.