Knitwear exports to US jump phenomenally in January

25 Feb '09

2 min read

According to the preliminary statistics of the Textiles and Apparel Office of U.S. Department of Commerce, in January 2009, the US imported 28.43 million square meters of knitted fabrics under 222 category from China, an increase of 118.7 percent from the same period in 2008. In addition, imports of female cotton knit shirts under 339 category and man-made fibre knit shirts under 639 category grew more than 50 percent.

Despite, Chinese textile and garment exports to the US no longer subject to quota restrictions from the beginning of this year and knitwear exports to that country recording a good start in 2009, knitting enterprises are generally not optimistic about export markets in 2009, mainly due to the loss of consumer confidence and also reduced purchasing power of these crisis-ridden markets.

The European Union, the United States and Japan are China's top three knitwear export markets, and knitwear demand of the these markets will directly influence export growth of China's knitwear in 2009. But since, these three countries have borne the maximum brunt of the recessionary trends; it is highly unlikely that knitwear export figures accomplished in 2008 could be repeated in 2009.

Knitwear exports deceleration is projected to be approximately 5 percent in value terms in 2009. However, experts believe that the recession in Japanese market is even more worth keeping a close watch, as most exporters are tuning their strategies for the US markets, it would be worthwhile to keep an eye on the Japanese markets too since, it accounts for a major chunk of China's knitwear shipments.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - China

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