In 2018, China imported $3.177 billion worth of fibre from Australia, but this figure fell by 41 per cent to $1.860 billion in 2022, according to Fibre2Fashion's market insight tool TexPro. There was a steep fall in imports during the pandemic, with figures dropping from $2.592 billion in 2019 to $1.441 billion in 2020. However, a slight recovery occurred in 2021 with imports valued at $1.971 billion, before declining again to $1.860 billion in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023, China imported fibre worth $374.693 million.

In terms of volume, China’s fibre import was 591.499 kg during 2018 which came down to 539.079 million in 2019. During Covid year 2020, the import halved to just 250.601 million kg. It further eased to 216.051 million kg and 199.652 million kg in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The import stood at 50.583 million kg in January-March 2023. 

TexPro data shows a significant increase in Chinese apparel exports to Australia following the disruptions caused by COVID-19. Exports stood at $3.837 billion in 2018 and rose to $5.530 billion in 2022. Despite a downturn in 2019 and 2020, with export values recorded at $3.700 billion and $3.636 billion respectively, a recovery was observed in 2021 with exports bouncing back to $4.784 billion and then rising to $5.530 billion in 2022. The outbound shipment value was recorded at $1.526 billion in the first quarter of the current year. 

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)