Entering May, although most companies still indicated that orders had decreased significantly year-on-year, some companies began to slowly get on track.

According to customs data, total exports of textiles and apparel in the first quarter were USD 47.88 billion, down 17.8% year-on-year. Among them, textile exports were USD 24.04 billion, down 15.3% year-on-year; apparel exports were USD 23.84 billion, down 20.2% year-on-year. In the first quarter, China’s textile and apparel exports to the United States, Japan and the EU decreased by 29.2%, 16.8% and 14.3% respectively year-on-year.

 

Entering May, the market situation picked up slightly. According to the statistics of 168tex. com, the current inventory of grey cloths in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has decreased compared with the previous period, and the inventory of grey cloths is now concentrated around 41 days.

 

The recent foreign trade demand for home textile products has begun to recover slowly. The reporter believes that there are two reasons. First, there are a large number of people diagnosed with the pandemic in the United States, and the consumption of medical sheets and other materials is large. The second is the centralized release of orders. Many countries have reopened their economic activities on the basis of basic control of the pandemic, and international logistics is gradually recovering. In addition, July and August are the textile off-season, and the foreign trade orders in the second half of the year are also mostly placed in May and June. Orders previously cancelled or delayed due to pandemic may begin to be released collectively during this time period.

 

Although the situation of some enterprises shows that the foreign trade market is slowly recovering, we still cannot ignore the global economy’s slump under the pressure of the pandemic and the global market’s demand for textiles has not increased significantly. In addition, the textile market has excess capacity and low-cost competition.