According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in the first half of this year, the country’s total textile and apparel exports totaled USD 125.19 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.16% (an increase of 6.75% year-on-year in RMB), and the overall export of the industry resumed positive growth. Among them, the cumulative export of textiles from January to June was USD 74.103 billion, a year-on-year increase of 27.81% (an increase of 32.37% in RMB); the cumulative export of apparel was USD 51.08 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 19.39% (a year-on-year decrease of 16.67% in RMB).

Since the second quarter, with the surge in the purchase of pandemic prevention materials in Europe and the United States, textiles including masks have become an important support for our industry’s exports. According to China Customs data, from January to May, China’s textile and apparel exports amounted to USD 100.62 billion, of which masks drove USD 60.36 billion in textile exports, a significant year-on-year increase of 18.5%. From April to June, the year-on-year growth rate of textile exports remained above 50%, especially in May, which reached a high value of 79.2%. In June, my country’s textile exports were USD 16.16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 56.7% (64.5% year-on-year in RMB), and the growth rate dropped by 22.5 percentage points from the previous month.

 

In addition, from the perspective of apparel exports, the proportion of apparel in the industry’s total exports in the first half of the year fell to 40.8%. The sluggish end consumer demand in the international market has caused significant pressure on the apparel industry. In June, the situation of apparel exports improved compared with the previous few months. In the same month, China’s apparel exports were USD 12.87 billion, an increase of nearly USD 4 billion from the previous month. Exports fell by 7.07% year-on-year (down 3.63% year-on-year in RMB), and the rate of decline narrowed by 17.4 percentage points from the previous month.