Trends in world textile and clothing trade

ABSTRACT

World textile and clothing trade increased by a sharp 14.2% to a record high of US$889 bn in 2021, following declines of 2.8% in 2020 and 0.7% in 2019. Within the overall total for 2021, clothing trade increased by 19.3% and textile trade increased by 7.1%. The increases can be attributed to a recovery—particularly in clothing trade—after trade was negatively impacted in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. The USA continued to have a deficit in its textile and clothing trade in 2021. Furthermore, the deficit was up by 13.7% compared with the previous year to a record high of US$127 bn. The rise reflected a jump in US clothing imports—which itself represented a rebound following a decline in 2020 as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU also continued to have a deficit in its textile and clothing trade, although this deficit was down by 23.2% to US$50 bn—primarily as a result of a decline in textile imports. These fell following a jump in the previous year, which itself reflected a surge in imports of face masks in order to stem the spread of COVID-19. Similarly, Japan's textile and clothing trade deficit was down by 9.5% to US$29 bn and the UK's textile and clothing trade deficit was down by 14.5% to US$22 bn—again reflecting declines in textile imports. Offsetting these deficits, China had the world's largest textile and clothing trade surplus in 2021, followed by India, Turkey, Vietnam and Bangladesh. China was also the world's largest textile exporter in 2021 with a 41% share of world textile exports, followed by the EU, India, Turkey, the USA, Vietnam, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The world's largest textile importer was the EU with a 21% share of world textile imports, followed by the USA in second place with a 10% share. Next in importance was Vietnam, followed by China, Bangladesh, Japan, the UK, Indonesia, Turkey and South Korea. The world's largest clothing exporter in 2021 was China with a 33% share of world clothing exports, followed by the EU, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Turkey, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Pakistan. The world's largest clothing importer, however, was the EU with a 34% share of world clothing imports while the USA took 19%, Japan took 5% and the UK took 4%. Next in importance was China, followed by Canada, South Korea, Russia, Switzerland and Australia. But these six countries had only small shares of world clothing imports. © Textiles Intelligence Limited 2022.