The textile industry in UAE encompasses several categories such as woven, knitted and non-woven fabrics. The UAE textile market in 2011 was valued at USD 13 billion which has grown at CAGR of 9.9% during the period 2006-2011. UAE is one of the major textile markets of the world which includes fibers, fabrics, cloth, apparels, outerwear and several others.

The output of the textile market in UAE has increased from USD 778.1 million in 2007 to USD million in 2011, at a CAGR of 4.7%. In wake of favorable economic and business conditions in the country, the textile manufacturing market in UAE has been experiencing intense competition from the textile manufacturing countries in South East Asia such as China, India and Thailand.

In 2010, there were signs of recovery and the revenue increased by 6.2%. This upward shift can be attributed to demand for textile and textile articles from countries like Iran, Russia, China, India and the other GCC states.

The UAE textile industry is diverse in its products. In 2011, the knitted fabric was the most demanded textile material in UAE which accounted for around 49.7% followed by Woven fabrics with about % of the overall market demand in the country.

UAE brought in maximum of its textile and textile articles imports from China valued at USD 2,152.0 million in 2011. It has been witnessed that China and India constituted a major segment of the textile and textile articles imports in the UAE since the cost of manufacturing apparel and other such articles is very low-priced in these countries due to the availability of low cost labor and low input costs.

Iran was the biggest recipient of UAE’s textile and textile articles and re-exports at USD 922.9 million, of which Man-Made Filaments again had the highest share of 59.2%.

Among the main consumer trends, online shopping has become more popular and is well received among UAE population. The current size of UAE’s online retail market was recorded at USD 227 million.

Men’s outerwear volumes grew at CAGR of 0.9% from 16,250.3 thousand units in 2006 from that in 2011. Apparel specialist retailers led the sales of men’s outerwear and continued to steadily gain share till the end of the review period, rising to % value share.

Traditional retailers like baby care specialists struggled to compete with leading brands in children’s wear because of strong branding and their presence in shopping mall locations. Hosiery sales were hit by a % decline in 2010 but recovered by % in 2011. The Nightwear segment greatly supported by the women’s category grew by % in volume terms