European Union’s (EU) apparel import performance for the period of January-May 2023 and a brief analysis. You may know that the official data source of EU, the EUROSTAT use to publish the monthly data update within 18-20th day of the following month, the release is being delayed this month since the import data of Croatia is not yet uploaded in the database. So, we have compiled the import data of 26 member countries of EU, excluding Croatia. Please find the attached data-sheet in the attachment for your information.
With 23.32% share of the EU’s (26 countries) total RMG import, Bangladesh remains the second largest apparel import source for the EU after China (23.67% share) during Jan-May 2023, in dollar value term. In terms of quantity (measured in kilogram), we have already surpassed China last year and continuing the first position in EU during the mentioned months of 2023. If we look at the statistics, value wise share of EU’s import from Bangladesh and China is zeroing in.
According to the latest data, EU’s apparel import from world in the mentioned period has declined by 8.84%, i.e. reached to US$ 36.31 billion in Jan-May 2023 from US$ 39.83 billion in Jan-May 2022. In terms of quantity EU’s clothing import declined by 16.54%, i.e. to US$ 1.46 billion from US$ 1.75 billion.
EU’s import from China has declined by 15.25% in value terms to US$ 8.59 billion during the mentioned period from US$ 10.14 billion in Jan-May 2022. In terms of quantity, the decline is recorded 18.39 %.
EU’s import from Bangladesh declined by 11.59% (value-wise) during the same period of time, i.e. to US$ 8.46 billion in January-May 2023 from US$ 9.57 billion in January-May 2022. Import from Bangladesh also saw a decline by 16.39% in terms of quantity. The mismatch in growth in terms of dollar value and weight reflects a surge in unit price (dollar per KG) by 5.74%, i.e. to US$ 17.94/ KG in Jan-May 2023 from US$ 16.96/ KG in Jan-May 2022.
Among the top ten apparel-sourcing countries of EU, all the countries have shown negative growth in terms of both value and quantity. As per the data, during Jan-May 2023, EU’s imports from Turkey, the third largest apparel import source, has dropped by 11.55% in value terms and 23.07% in quantity term (measured in kilogram).
EU’s imports from India and Vietnam have also declined by 5.04% and 1.17% respectively in value terms. Also volume-wise, both countries have shown 13.29% and 10.09% decline respectively. However, value-wise EU’s import from Vietnam has declined comparatively less than the other top sourcing countries.
This may be mentioned that, during January-April 2023, Croatia’s apparel import from the world has increased by 40.13% compared to the Jan-April of 2022 in value terms. Volume-wise the import also increased by 18.62%. During Jan-April of 2023. Croatia’s RMG import from Bangladesh also increased by 299.88% in value terms and reached US$ 19.20 million in Jan-Apr 2023 from US$ 4.8 million in Jan-Apr 2022. Volume-wise it has also shown 214% growth. Croatia’s import from China has increased by 0.43% in dollar value term, i.e. reached to US$ 8.38 million in Jan-Apr 2023 from US$ 8.34 million in Jan-Apr 2022.
The trend in trade clearly reflects the depressing scenario of the retail business and economy, which is feared to continue throughout this year. For Bangladesh, the positive side is that we are being able to gradually diversify our products and moving toward sophisticated items, which is reflected in the unit price growth.
