The Eurostat has published the data on EU’s apparel import for the period of January-March 2023 and we have compiled and analyzed it based on year-on-year progress. In this mail, I am sharing a brief analysis on EU’s overall apparel imports from the world as well as from the top sourcing countries.
With 24.07% share of the EU’s total RMG import (in terms of dollar value), Bangladesh remains the 2nd largest apparel import source for the EU after China (China’s share 24.55%) during Jan-Mar 2023. However if we look at the quantity-wise import statistics (measured in kilogram), Bangladesh became number ‘one’ sourcing country for EU during the mentioned months of 2023. In fact, Bangladesh secured the top position in EU’s apparel sourcing list in terms of quantity in 2022! I will send you a separate email on it later with a detailed analysis and datasheet.
According to the latest data, EU’s apparel import from the world in the mentioned period has declined by 4.94% compared to the corresponding period of 2022, about 1.22 billion dollars decline. In terms of quantity, EU’s clothing import had a stiff downturn by 12.64%, which is 136.88 million KGs less than Jan-Mar 2022.
EU’s import from China the 2nd largest apparel import source has declined by 17.80% in value terms to US$ 5.7 billion during the mentioned period from US$ 6.99 dollars. In terms of quantity, the decline is recorded 22.46 % or 65 million KGs.
Despite the slowdown, EU’s import from Bangladesh has shown value-wise growth by 3.9% during the mentioned period of time to US$ 5.6 billion from US$ 5.4 billion in January-March 2022. In quantity term, mport from Bangladesh saw a decline by 3.67%, or 11.84 million KGs. This is caused by inflated unit price (due to raw materials, transportation and other production cost hike); unit price increased by 7.86% in Jan-Mar 2023.
Among the top ten apparel-sourcing countries Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam have shown positive growth while EU’s apparel import from other countries including Turkey, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Morocco has declined. As per the data, during Jan-Mar 2023, EU’s imports from Turkey the 3rd largest apparel import source of EU has dropped significantly by 12.79%. Yet, EU’s imports from India and Vietnam have increased by 5.75% and 3.73% respectively in value terms. Though volume-wise, EU’s import from all the top countries has shown negative growth.
