Textile and Apparel Imports Rise as Top Shipping Countries See Mixed Results

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 6.39 billion square meter equivalents in August, up 2.4 percent from July and 4.8 percent from August 2017. Textile imports totaled 3.66 billion SME, up 0.5 percent for the month and 7.7 percent from the previous year, while apparel imports of 2.73 billion SME were up 5.0 percent from July and 1.3 percent from a year before.

Overall Imports. Total year-to-date imports were 44.6 billion SME, up 4.9 percent from the previous year, as textile imports gained 7.6 percent to 26.3 billion SME and apparel imports rose 1.3 percent to 18.3 billion SME.

For the year ending in August imports were 66.9 billion SME, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier, as textile imports increased 8.4 percent to 39.6 billion SME and apparel imports rose 1.0 percent to 27.3 billion SME.

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

                       

	SME	Monthly change %	Annual change %	$ Value	Monthly change %	Annual change %
China	3.3 billion	+2.5	+1.0	$4.27 billion	+2.2	-0.5
India	492.5 million	+5.1	+13.9	$674.0 million	+0.2	+6.8
Vietnam	454.4 million	-2.6	+11.3	$1.25 billion	-3.1	+3.6
Pakistan	239.6 million	+17.2	+27.8	$261.3 million	+1.4	+14.5
Mexico	235.0 million	+5.4	+9.4	$423.8 million	-0.1	+1.1
Bangladesh	180.9 million	-7.2	+2.5	$466.5 million	-10.9	-2.1
Korea	153.4 million	-12.2	+15.4	$74.4 million	-13.9	-1.9
Indonesia	134.4 million	+16.2	+6.4	$443.0 million	+14.0	+8.7
Cambodia	100.8 million	-11.8	+3.8	$241.1 million	-9.9	+9.3
Honduras	89.9 million	+1.7	-12.0	$246.4 million	+9.2	-0.7
Canada	84.2 million	-10.8	-6.9	$115.9 million	-1.8	-7.1

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