The information provided by China Customs indicated that in the first half of this year, 2006 China’s gross import & export of textile and apparel increased by 21.8 per cent year-on-year amounting USD 71.28 billion. Among them, gross import was USD 8.67 billion up by 6 per cent and export USD 62.61billion up by 24.4 per cent compared with the same period of last year. The favorable balance was USD 53.94 billion increasing 27.9 per cent year-on-year.

The import as a whole took on went up, but the increasing speed was slow correspondingly since the growth extent in each month was over 10 per cent except Feb. 2006.

It is obvious that China’s export to USA started to come down when entering 2006. It is reported that China’s export of textiles to USA was 5.6 billion by the end of June, 2006, down 22 per cent year-on-year. In which, the export of knitting wear fell by 22 per cent and woven wear fell by .3 per cent. It is remarkable that the export in quantity seemed faster by 50.3 per cent for knitting wear and 13.6 per cent for woven wear.

And the growth of export to EU kept increasing by 7.8 per cent only and the increasing speed showed itself slow month by month. In which, the growth of export in May and June, 2006 has got back by 10 per cent. The statistics showed from Jan. to June that the export of woven wear to EU increased by 16.6 per cent, but the export of knitting wear down by 12 per cent and the export in quantity dropped roundly. The export of knitting in quantity wear to EU fell by 23 per cent.

China’s export of textile & apparel to EU was USD 9.52 billion, up by 10 per cent, but export to USA was only USD 8.3 billion down by 0.5 per cent year-on-year. The total export to EU and USA took up 28.5 per cent in China’s total export of textile and apparel in Jan. to June, 2006, falling by 3.6 percent on base of year-on-year.

China’s top five markets in export were EU, Japan, Hong Kong China, USA and Korea. The growth of export to Hong Kong and Korea was 24 and 43 per cent respectively and the growth to export to Japan was 9 per cent.

The favorable balance in China’s export to Japan and Korea increased in evidence by USD 7 billion and USD 1.13 billion respectively increasing by 13.1 and 225 per cent respectively.

Source：CCPIT TEX