The USA-based agency named ‘Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA)’ has recently published the trade data of the United States for the year 2021. According to OTEXA, USA imported 7.14 billion dollars’ worth of apparel from Bangladesh in 2021, highest ever import from Bangladesh. Bangladesh remains as the 3rd largest apparel source for USA with 8.76% share of its apparel import from world. USA’s import from Bangladesh has increased by 36.69% whereas their global import grew by 27.36% in 2021 compared to the previous year 2020. If we consider the growth between 2021 and 2019, USA’s apparel import from Bangladesh saw 20.62% growth, whereas USA’s import from world declined by 2.53% during this period. This indicates Bangladesh’s relatively stronger position among the U.S. customers.
China, being the top source of apparel import for USA and having a 24.03 % share, posted 29.40% year-over-year growth in 2021. USA’s apparel import from China reached 19.61 billion dollars in 2021. In this same year, import from Vietnam stood 14.37 billion dollars. USA’s import from Vietnam also grew by 14.33% in 2021 compared to 2020. Other countries having high growth were Pakistan 58.23%, Honduras 45.63%, India 38.92%, Mexico 28.74%, South Korea 22.75%, and Cambodia 20.05%.
During the past 10 years (2011-2021), the value of USA apparel import from Bangladesh has increased by 4.71% annually whereas their import from the world has grown by 0.49% annually. During the same period USA’s import from China declined by 3.97% annually. Import from Vietnam witnessed 8.02% annual growth during the mentioned period. Other countries such as Pakistan, Cambodia, India, and Honduras have also shown positive annual growth during the last 10 years.
As the world has started to recover from the crisis of COVID and retail sales in USA have gained pace in recent months, which is reflected in our export growth to USA. I am sending you the last 10 years (2011-21) apparel import statistics of USA and the monthly statistics for the last 3 years in the attachment for your kind information. You may follow the comparative trade performance of the major supplying countries in this attachment to assess where Bangladesh is going and how potential could the U.S. market be for us, being the single largest market. Hope you will find it informative.
