Textile and Apparel Imports Fall Again as Shipments from China Plummet

The Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel reports that monthly imports of cotton, wool, manmade fiber, silk blend, and non-cotton vegetable fiber textile and apparel products totaled 4.79 billion square meter equivalents in March, down 11.0 percent from February but up 2.7 percent from March 2018. Textile imports totaled 2.86 billion SME, down 8.0 percent for the month but up 0.9 percent from the previous year, while apparel imports of 1.94 billion SME were down 14.5 percent from February but up 5.5 percent from a year before.

Overall Imports. Total year-to-date imports were 16.4 billion SME, up 5.9 percent from the previous year, as textile imports gained 6.8 percent to 9.63 billion SME and apparel imports rose 4.6 percent to 6.81 billion SME.

For the year ending in March imports were 69.5 billion SME, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, as textile imports increased 7.4 percent to 41.4 billion SME and apparel imports rose 3.6 percent to 28.1 billion SME.

Source Countries. OTEXA has reported the following statistics on textile and apparel imports from major source countries for March 2019.