Textile and Apparel Imports Fall as Shipments from India, Mexico 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 4.82 billion square meter equivalents in December, down 6.2 percent from November but up 2.6 percent from December 2015. Textile imports totaled 2.83 billion SME, down 8.7 percent from November but up 5.6 percent from the previous year, while apparel imports of 1.99 billion SME were down 2.9 percent from November and down 1.5 percent from a year earlier.

For all of 2016 imports were 62.9 billion SME, down 1.0 percent from 2015, as textile imports fell 0.9 percent to 36.0 billion SME and apparel imports lost 1.1 percent to 26.9 billion SME.

With respect to specific sources, imports of textile and apparel products (except cotton and silk blend textiles) saw the following changes in December.