Textile and apparel export of China grows 14.3% y-o-y during Jan-Feb

According to the latest statistics from the General Administration of Customs, China's textile and apparel exports reached 45.1 billion US dollars in the first two months of 2024, a year-on-year growth of 14.3% (17.5% in RMB terms), with the growth rate rising by 32.8 percentage points compared to the same period of 2023, surpassing the export growth rate of the overall goods trade by 7.2 percentage points. Among them, textile exports amounted to 21.71 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 15.5% (18.9% in RMB terms), while apparel exports amounted to 23.38 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 13.1% (16.3% in RMB terms).

Compared with historical data, China's textile and apparel exports have performed well in the first two months of this year. Even with the inclusion of the entire Spring Festival holiday period in Feb, the cumulative export amount of 45.1 billion US dollars is still at a relatively high level compared to the same period in history. One main reason is that most textile raw material prices have slightly increased compared to the same period last year, which has contributed to the increase in export value to some extent. Another reason is that market orders have shown signs of recovery since the beginning of the year, as reported by some companies.

However, the export data of textiles and apparels in the first two months of each year are greatly influenced by factors such as seasons and holidays, leading to significant fluctuations. The export situation still needs to be further observed and analyzed in combination with the data for the first quarter. Looking at the overall trend for the year, the textile industry's foreign trade is still under pressure, and weak external demand recovery is still a basic market characteristic this year. Insufficient export orders continue to be the primary difficulty faced by textile enterprises currently. Industry enterprises also need to make good use of the policy window period of China's efforts to stabilize foreign trade, actively optimize export product structure and market structure, enrich trading models, and strive to cultivate new driving forces to promote high-quality development of the industry's foreign trade.