In The First Half Of The Year, China'S Textile And Garment Exports Set A Record For The Same Period

With the slow down of epidemic situation and normalization of prevention and control, as well as the continuous release of dividend of stabilizing foreign trade policy, China's textile export growth has been strongly supported. The world economy hesitated on the road of recovery, and the epidemic situation repeatedly slowed down and rebounded in the world. Affected by the epidemic, India, Vietnam and other textile and garment manufacturers' orders were blocked, and some orders were transferred to China. In the first half of 2021, China's textile and clothing export reached the highest level in the same period.

According to the monthly report data of China's customs, in the first half of 2021, China's textile and clothing exports reached 140.9 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%. The export scale of textiles and clothing not only exceeded the level of the same period in 2019 before the epidemic, but also set a new record of the same period in history.

01 part of the orders were concentrated in China, and the export of clothing increased significantly

With the emergence of multi wave epidemic in the world, China can still supply clothing products stably, and international orders tend to concentrate in China. At the same time, the demand of European and American markets is gradually recovering. Therefore, China's clothing export shows a momentum of acceleration. In the first half of the year, the export volume of China's clothing products was 71.53 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year increase of 40.3%, which was the highest export volume in the same period since 2016; Clothing accounted for 51.1% of the total export volume of textiles and clothing, 3.9% higher than that in 2020, and returned to the changing trend of clothing proportion before the epidemic.

Changes in the proportion of textile and clothing export structure in recent years

Source: China Customs

From the perspective of export market, the United States, the European Union, Japan and ASEAN are the top four clothing export markets in China. In the first half of the year, clothing exports to these four major markets were US $16.88 billion, US $13.36 billion, US $6.8 billion and US $5.84 billion, respectively, up 65.7%, 30.0%, 14.6% and 42.1% year-on-year.

Take the United States, the largest export market, as an example. From the U.S. Customs import data, the proportion of Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia in the U.S. clothing import market has been increasing in the past decade. However, under the influence of the epidemic situation, clothing imported from the four countries accounted for 19.7%, 8.8%, 5.9% and 5.5% of the U.S. clothing import market from January to May this year, which was slightly lower than that of the same period last year, 4%, 0. 6%, 0. 1% and 1. 3% respectively. China accounted for 19.9% of the U.S. clothing import market, 0.6% higher than that of the same period last year.

02 the demand for epidemic prevention products decreased and the export of textiles fell down

With the change of the global epidemic situation, the demand for epidemic prevention materials has been greatly reduced, among which the reduction of the demand for masks has hindered the decline of China's textile export. In the first half of the year, China's textile exports reached 68.56 billion US dollars, down 7.4% year on year.

Among them, the export volume of textile products (including masks) with customs tariff No. 63079000 was US $6.92 billion, down 78.8% year on year. The proportion of this product in China's textile exports dropped to 10.1%, compared with 32.63 billion US dollars in the same period of last year, accounting for 44.1%.

Affected by the outbreak of the epidemic in the first quarter of last year, China's textile exports showed a quarterly low since 2015, with exports of only 26.9 billion US dollars; By the second quarter, affected by the surge in global demand for epidemic prevention materials, the quarterly export of textiles reached a record high, reaching 51.43 billion US dollars. Under the effect of base effect, textile exports in the second quarter of this year decreased by 28.5%, but in absolute terms, textile exports in the second quarter of this year amounted to US $36.79 billion, still higher than that of each quarter in 2019 before the epidemic.

Comparison chart of textile quarterly export in recent two years

Source: China Customs

03 excluding the mask factor, the export of major commodities in the industrial chain increased

From the perspective of industrial chain, the export of textile products (including masks) with customs tariff No. 63079000 has declined rapidly, which is an important factor affecting the decline of textile exports in the first half of this year.

If the mask factor is excluded, textile exports in the first half of the year achieved a positive growth of 49.0%. In addition, the export of chemical fiber, yarn, fabric and textile machinery in the industrial chain increased. The sustained recovery of the global economy has led to an increase in external demand, which has boosted China's textile exports.

Export table of main commodities in China's textile industry chain in the first half of 2021

Source: China Customs

04 demand continues to recover and major export markets are active

Although the epidemic situation has been repeated, the international demand is still growing; In addition, excluding the mask factor, China's textile and clothing exports to major trading partners have achieved positive growth.

From the perspective of the top five export markets of textiles and clothing, they are the United States, ASEAN, EU, Japan and South Korea. In the first half of the year, the value of the five major markets for textile and clothing export was 24.64 billion US dollars, 22.47 billion US dollars, 20.59 billion US dollars, 9.47 billion US dollars and 4.42 billion US dollars respectively; The year-on-year growth rates were 12.2%, 35.7%, - 20.0%, - 8.4% and 18.5% respectively. If the export volume of unlisted textile products (customs tariff No. 63079000, including masks) is excluded, the five major markets have achieved positive growth year on year, increasing by 63.4%, 42.2%, 31.0%, 14.7% and 32.4% respectively.

Proportion of textile and garment export market in the first half of the year

Source: China Customs

The United States is the largest export market of China's textiles and clothing. In the first half of the year, one fifth of the end products of the industrial chain were exported to the United States. In addition to the US $16.68 billion of clothing exports, there are 6.93 billion US dollars of textile products exported to the United States, accounting for 23.5% and 22.4% of the clothing and textile products export market, respectively. According to the data of the textile and clothing office of the U.S. Department of Commerce, from January to may 2021, the United States imported 10.15 billion US dollars of Chinese textiles and clothing, an increase of 32.3% over the same period of last year, and continued to occupy the largest import source market of the United States.

With the development of textile industry in Southeast Asia and South Asia, the demand for products in front of China's textile industry chain is increasing. In the first half of this year, China's textile yarn and textile fabric export market ranked first by ASEAN. Textile yarn exports to ASEAN were $1.29 billion, up 33.8% year on year, accounting for 19.2% of the textile yarn export market. The export of textile fabrics to ASEAN was US $10.68 billion, up 41.6% year on year, accounting for 51.4% of the textile export market.

Most of the 27 EU countries are developed economies. Like the United States, there is a strong demand for the end products of China's textile industry chain. In the first half of this year, the EU took the second place in China's clothing and textile products exports, with 13.36 billion US dollars of clothing exports to the EU, accounting for 18.7% of China's clothing export market; Textile products were exported to the European Union with us $5.2 billion, accounting for 10.7% of the export market of textile products.

In the first half of the year, the Japanese market occupied the third place in China's clothing export market and the fourth place in the textile product market. Clothing exports to Japan amounted to 6.8 billion US dollars, accounting for 9.5% of China's clothing export market; Textile products exported to Japan amounted to US $2.34 billion, accounting for 4.8% of the export market of textile products. According to the statistics of Japanese customs, in the first half of the year, Japan imported 981.7 billion yen (about 8.99 billion US dollars) of China's textile and clothing, a year-on-year decrease of 15.9%, accounting for 54.5% of Japan's import textile and clothing market.

05 strong growth in Western China, rapid growth in Fujian and Shandong

In the first half of the year, the export of textiles and clothing in the western region grew strongly, while that of the eastern region increased. Specifically, in the first half of the year, the western region exported 6.96 billion US dollars of textiles and clothing, an increase of 30.2% year-on-year, accounting for 4.9% of China's textile and clothing export market; The export of eastern China reached 121.49 billion US dollars, up 13.5% year on year, accounting for 86.7% of China's textile and clothing export market; The export of central China was US $10.13 billion, down 4.2% year on year; The export of the three northeast provinces reached 1.78 billion US dollars, down 11.6% year on year.

From the top five export provinces and cities, Fujian, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu textile and clothing exports have double-digit growth. Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian, respectively, exported 36.78 billion U.S. dollars, 22.66 billion US dollars, 21.71 billion US dollars, 13.53 billion US dollars and 12.23 billion US dollars respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 18.6%, 11.3%, 4.5%, 28.0% and 35.8% respectively.

Export faces many challenges in 2006

The epidemic situation is still spreading all over the world, the recovery of world economy is unstable and unbalanced, and the external environment of China's textile export is complex.

The recovery of the world economy is uneven. With the promotion of vaccines and the unremitting efforts of various countries to restore their economies, the world economy has accelerated its recovery, and international organizations have raised their expectations for world economic and trade growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the world economic outlook report in July, predicting that the global economic growth in 2021 will be 6%, which is in line with the previous forecast. However, the IMF raised the growth expectations of developed economies by 0.5 percentage points to 5.6%, and lowered the growth expectations of emerging markets and developing economies by 0.4 percentage points to 6.3%. The latest report on trade statistics and outlook of the World Trade Organization (WTO) points out that the world trade will usher in a strong but unbalanced recovery. It is estimated that the growth rate of Global trade will reach 8% in 2021.

The uncertainty of global epidemic development has increased. According to the World Health Organization (who), the delta variant virus has emerged in more than 120 economies around the world, and the spread rate of the variant strain is really amazing. However, on the one hand, the vaccine still has a protective effect on Delta variant strains, and countries are also promoting the process of vaccination. On the other hand, this round of epidemic did not bring about a significant increase in deaths. Therefore, although the rise of the epidemic caused by delta variant virus has some interference on the process of economic recovery, it will not interrupt the trend of economic recovery in developed countries.

The cost pressure of textile foreign trade enterprises is increasing. Although the epidemic is still spreading all over the world, the global supply chain has been impacted and the port operation efficiency has been greatly reduced, the demand of container transportation market has recovered well. According to Clarkson's forecast, the global demand for container transportation will increase by 6.1% in 2021. With the active container transportation market, the international freight has increased significantly. According to the Drury world container index, the spot price of a 40 foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles rose to US $10503 at the end of July, a year-on-year increase of 258%, increasing the cost pressure on textile foreign trade enterprises and squeezing profits.

In addition, the external risks caused by non economic factors such as industrial chain, trade order and political pattern remodeling are still obvious.