Despite their ongoing trade war, there seems to be no impact on Chinese apparel shipment to the US. Apparel import by the US reached US $ 54.52 billion in 2018 till August and China contributed 31.68 per cent of it, accommodating US $ 17.28 billion worth of shipment. China’s share was just 30.74 per cent in Jan. to Jul. ’18 period which sharply increased in August, probably because buyers did not want to take risk ahead of the festive season in USA and thereby placed order to their Chinese suppliers.
According to recently released data by OTEXA and analysed by Apparel Resources, Vietnam, Bangladesh and India, on the other hand, felt the impact as they lost share from 15.03%, 6.95% and 5.24% in Jan. to Jul ’18 respectively to 14.90%, 6.72% and 5.02% in Jan. to Aug. ’18.
Another way of looking at this data is that China might have increased its share on the monthly basis but it has noted a downfall on the yearly note as its share in the US apparel import value back in 2017 was 32.82 per cent. As compared to the first 8-month period in 2017, China plunged in its apparel shipment to USA by 1.04 per cent in value terms, while others (mentioned above) noted growth.
Vietnam shipped apparels worth US $ 8,125 million in the said period making a jump of 5.85 per cent on the yearly note. Bangladesh and India too increased their export to US $ 3,664.15 million (up 4.51%) and US $ 2,741.44 million (up 3.86%), respectively.
Markedly, Indonesia plunged both on monthly and yearly basis. Share of Indonesia in US apparel import value was 5.84 per cent in Jan. to Aug. ’17 period which reduced to 5.57 per cent in the corresponding period of 2018. Notably, on M-o-M basis, Indonesia could not see any positive turnaround as export share in Jan. to Jul. ’18 was 5.66 per cent.
If the data is anything to go by, India is surely going to overtake Indonesia by the end of 2018 to become 4th top apparel exporting destination to USA.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
