Textile and Apparel Imports Jump as Shipments from Southeast Asia Soar

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 6.24 billion square meter equivalents in July, up 9.1 percent from June and 7.3 percent from July 2017. Textile imports totaled 3.64 billion SME, up 4.3 percent for the month and 11.2 percent from the previous year, while apparel imports of 2.60 billion SME were up 16.6 percent from June and 2.2 percent from a year before.

Overall Imports. Total year-to-date imports were 38.2 billion SME, up 4.9 percent from the previous year, as textile imports gained 7.5 percent to 22.7 billion SME and apparel imports rose 1.4 percent to 15.5 billion SME.

For the year ending in July imports were 66.6 billion SME, up 4.8 percent from a year earlier, as textile imports increased 7.8 percent to 39.3 billion SME and apparel imports rose 0.8 percent to 27.3 billion SME.

Source Countries. OTEXA has reported the following statistics on textile and apparel imports from major source countries for July 2018.