The first half of 2018 gave a sign of recovery as far as volume-wise apparel import of the European Union is concerned. During January to June period this year, EU was up 5.26 per cent in volumes to import 2,251.81 million kg of apparels. The data was recently released by Eurostat.
The decent jump in volumes can be attributed to the fall in unit prices that pushed European buyers to capitalise on the same by placing more orders to countries like Bangladesh, Turkey, and Vietnam, while India’s struggle in the European market continued. EU apparel import values stood at € 38,330.27 million during H1 ’18 marking 2 per cent fall on the yearly note.
Notably, China felt massive dents in its export values as share in the EU clothing market reduced to 27.50 per cent in H1 ’18 from 29.70 per cent in H1 ’17. This year China could ship apparel worth € 10,545.15 million (down 9.09%), while in the same period of prior year the export value was € 11,600 million.
Bangladesh is riding positively in the European apparel market as shipment value during H1 ’18 clocked € 8,008 million marking 1.73 per cent growth. In volume-terms, the surge touched a staggering number of 14.82 per cent as Bangladesh shipped 633 million kg of apparels during the review period as compared to 551 million kg of apparels in the corresponding period of last year.
Turkey, despite the ongoing tussle in political scenario, registered growth in both volumes (4.33%) and values (0.83%) in its apparel exports to EU. Turkey earned € 4,784.70 million in the said period and shipped 210.16 million kg of apparels to EU, majority of which was contributed by niche products.
Further, India fell 3.32 per cent in value terms of apparel export to 28-nations bloc to hit € 2,779 million figure, while experienced a marginal growth of 0.11 per cent in volumes during H1 ’18.
On the other hand, Vietnam jumped impressively by 20.63 per cent in volume of apparel exports while values (€ 1,451.33 million) declined by 0.18 per cent following a significant drop in unit prices which stood at just € 19.54 per kg of fabric equivalent as against € 23.62 per kg of fabric equivalent in the same period last year.
