India’s apparel sourcing from China reduced in FY ’21; Bangladesh compensates!

COVID-19 caused a dent in the Indian apparel retail industry and forced retailers to keep stores closed in 2020. This resulted in a significant decline in the country’s apparel import during FY ’21.

According to the data available on the portal of Ministry of Commerce and Industry (India), the country tumbled 24 per cent to import US $ 881.08 million worth of garments during FY ’21 that ended in March this year, as compared to US $ 1.14 billion in FY ’20.

The decline in imports is in lines with CMAI’s Mega Survey that estimated the domestic apparel retail industry shrank by around 20 per cent in FY ’21 with a total loss of Rs. 150,000 crore (US $ 20.83 billion).

Of total imports, knitted clothing valued US $ 392.81 million and fell by 21.05 per cent in FY ‘21, while woven clothing import valued US $ 488.27 million, downfalling by 24.52 per cent on yearly note. (See Table 1)

Table 1 – Data is compiled by Apparel Resources using Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s statistics

Though China remained the top import destination for the India apparel buyers who imported US $ 317.55 million worth of garment from China, the huge outrage for ‘Made in China’ products in 2020 helped India see a decline in sourcing from its Chinese suppliers by around 36 per cent.

In FY ’20, China constituted around 43 per cent of India’s total apparel import values which got reduced to 36 per cent in FY ’21 and the benefits seem to be grabbed by Bangladesh.

Despite pandemic and reduced overall sourcing, India saw a significant increase from Bangladesh by 16.72 per cent to US $ 272.60 million, which strengthens the fact that orders that used to go to China were shifted to Bangladesh.

Spain was the 3rd top import destination for India in FY ’21 as it shipped US $ 76.49 million worth of garments to the Indian buyers.