Data Analysis: Global Textile And Clothing Trade

In 2019, the global trade will slow down and the scale of Global trade will decrease. According to the world trade report 2020 released by the World Trade Organization at the end of July, the global commodity trade volume will reach 19 trillion US dollars in 2019, with a year-on-year decrease of 3% and a year-on-year decrease of 0.1%. The growth rate of trade volume is far lower than the average annual growth rate of 2.3% since the financial crisis. In 2019, the export volume of industrial manufactured goods, including textiles and clothing, decreased by 2% year-on-year.

Global trade in textiles and clothing also decreased. According to the report data, the global textile and clothing export volume in 2019 will be 799.63 billion US dollars, and the import value will be 839.54 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year decrease of 0.9% and 3.1% respectively. From the perspective of product structure, the clothing trade is relatively stable. In 2019, the global textile export volume was 306.12 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%, and the clothing export value was 493.51 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year decrease of only 0.1%.

China's textile industry has maintained a stable scale advantage in the international export market, and its share in the global total export volume has only slightly decreased. According to WTO data, in 2019, China's total exports of textiles and clothing amounted to 272 billion US dollars, accounting for 34% of the global export value of textiles and clothing in the same period, a slight decrease of 0.2% compared with the share of 34.2% in 2018. China's textile export competitiveness has improved. In 2019, the export volume was 120 billion US dollars, accounting for 39.2% of the global textile export value, 1.3% higher than that in 2018, reflecting the improvement of China's textile fabrics, chemical fiber and other products in the international supply chain. In 2019, China's clothing export volume was 152 billion US dollars, accounting for 30.8% of the global clothing export value, 1.1% lower than that in 2018.

From the top 10 countries and regions of textile and clothing import and export, the ranking of major import and export countries and regions has little change. The export market share of Vietnam, Bangladesh and Turkey maintained a rising trend. The import share of the United States increased, while that of the European Union decreased.

Due to the UK's withdrawal from EU and its large scale of textile and garment import and export, some countries have been replaced by the UK and failed to enter the list. Britain is an important consumer market in Europe, ranking 7th in textile import and 4th in garment import, and 8th in garment export.

The EU kept the second place in textile and clothing export and the first in import, with the export share of 25.3%, 1.7 percentage points lower than that in 2018. Among them, the textile export share decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 21.7%, and the clothing export share decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 27.6%. The import share decreased by 5.1 percentage points to 29.4%, of which the import share of textiles decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 21.3%, and the import share of clothing decreased by 4.2 percentage points to 34.2%.

The share of the United States in the import market has increased. The share of textile imports in the U.S. market will increase steadily to 15.0% in 2019. Among them, the import share of textiles increased by 0.9% to 10%, and that of clothing increased by 0.8% to 18.2%.

Vietnam's export share increased. In 2019, Vietnam's textile and garment exports totaled US $40 billion, accounting for about 5% of the global textile and clothing export share, an increase of 0.5% compared with that in 2018. The textile export rank rose from 8th to 7th in 2018, and the market share increased by 0.3 percentage points to 2.9%; the export rank and share of clothing remained unchanged. Vietnam's textile import share decreased slightly by 0.1 percentage point, but ranked higher than that of China, jumping from the fourth place in 2018 to the third place.

Bangladesh's ranking remains unchanged. The import share of textiles decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 3.1%, and the export share of clothing increased by 0.1% to 6.8%.

Turkey's export share increased slightly. Turkey's ranking remained unchanged, but its textile and garment export market share increased by 0.1 percentage point to 3.5%, of which textile export share increased by 0.1 percentage point and clothing export share increased by 0.1 percentage point.