Textile & apparel imports surge from China unabated in June - AMTAC
13 Aug '05
5 min read
The US government has safeguards in place on cotton trousers, man-made fiber trousers, cotton shirts, man-made fiber shirts, men's and boys cotton and man-made fiber woven shirts, cotton and man-made fiber underwear, socks, and combed cotton yarn.
Safeguard decisions by the US government are due on cases covering wool trousers, sweaters, brassieres, dressing gowns, knit fabric and other synthetic filament fabric on August 31.
The US government also has accepted for review six additional safeguard cases covering curtains, socks, woven blouses, skirts, nightwear and swimwear. Decisions on these cases are pending this fall.
Delving more deeply into the import surge, year to date US apparel imports by volume through June from China are up 125 percent compared to last year, an increase of more than 1.5 billion square meters equivalent. This has allowed China to increase its share of the U.S. import market from 13.5 percent in June 2004 to 26.5 percent in June 2005.
While U.S. imports of apparel from China are up 125 by volume year to date, they are up only 97 percent by value. The year-to-date value of U.S. apparel imports from China through June rose from $3.76 billion in 2004 to $7.40 billion in 2005.
Moreover, in sensitive apparel categories some of the price decreases are astounding. Consider cotton trousers. Year to date through June 2004, the United States imported 11,240,616 pair of cotton trousers from China at a cost of $118,490,000. The average price was $10.54 per pair. Year to date through 2005, however, the United States imported 209,604,072 pair of cotton trousers from China at a cost of $1,016,431,000. The average price fell to $4.85 - a price decrease of 54 percent!
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