The industry is abuzz with news that fresh orders are being placed for holiday season and sampling for S/S 2021 has begun. This is indeed good news, but the underlining current is still of cautious optimism and latest figures from the US also reflect the same sentiments.
In August 2020, the US registered a marginal decline of 2.89 per cent in volume of imports from India, as against the same month last year. The values were, however, lower by 18.47 per cent in the same comparison month, clearly indicating that prices are down compared to 2019.
What is significant is that India is much better placed than China in August 2020 when compared to loss of business in both volume and value terms in August 2019.
The country which has dominated global apparel trade for decades saw 23.03 per cent decline in volume of trade in August 2020 when compared with same month of 2019 and a downfall of 41.18 per cent in value terms.
However, this in no way means that the dragon is on the way out. In fact, if we see the improvement in exports from July 2020 to August 2020, China has registered a noteworthy recovery. In volumes, the country saw exports to the US in August 2020 increasing 22.01 per cent and in values the increase was 15.38 per cent from a month earlier.
For Indian exporters too, the recovery on a month-to-month basis is a matter to cheer. While the volumes increased a significant 37.78 per cent in August 2020 from July 2020, the values also were reasonably up in balance to increased volumes at 25.48 per cent.
