Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI) reported the Italian textile trade results.
In Italy, imports have continued to erode domestic textile and apparel manufacturing output, which continues to fall. Imports of both textiles and apparel from China rapidly gained value share, almost doubling between January-June 2001 and January-June 2005.
Traditional textile and apparel suppliers within Western Europe such as Germany, France, Belgium and Spain have all lost market share.
Overall imports of textiles from raw materials to fabric are declining as domestic manufacturing suffers from the growing power of large scale distribution groups/retail stores which has led to the rapid growth in the import of finished apparel.
Among apparel sector imports (all fibres) womenswear expanded fastest, menswear and knitwear imports both rose solidly between January-June 2001 and January-June 2005. The average import value per kg of womenswear, menswear and knitwear all fell during the same period.
Compared with last year (January-June 2005 vs January-June 2004), imports of apparel (all fibres) expanded even further. Exports in the meantime declined moderately.
Wool apparel imports by volume grew moderately, while exports of wool apparel declined by volume - much of this accounted for by a fall in wool knitwear exports. This implies that at the fibre level wool has lost both volume and market share, mainly to cotton which appears to have increased its share throughout the textile pipeline.
Australian research organization (AWI) mission is to drive research, development and innovation that will increase the long-term profitability of Australian woolgrowers.
Australian Wool Innovation Limited
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