The USA has been severely suffering in its apparel trade in 2020 due to COVID-19 and it’s massively down in RMG imports in the January-July ’20 period by 30.68 per cent in value terms on Y-o-Y basis.
Amidst this falling import, only apparel partner countries of USA which kept their heads high above tides are Ethiopia, Cambodia and Myanmar which noted Y-o-Y growth both in their volume-wise apparel exports as well as value-wise exports to USA in YTD (Year-Till-Date).
During Jan.-Jul. ’20, Cambodia shipped 580.17 million SME apparels (more than that of India and Indonesia) to USA, marking 4.93 per cent yearly growth. Value-wise, Cambodia noted a decent 6.13 per cent growth and clocked US $ 1.54 billion in its RMG exports to USA.
Notably, Cambodia’s value-wise export to USA is almost close to India’s value which is US $ 1.75 billion.
Myanmar also saw a positive 2020 in terms of RMG exports to USA despite a massive economic turbulence. The country shipped 59.28 million SME of garments to USA worth US $ 156.34 million and noted growth by 66.88 per cent and 29.22 per cent, respectively.
As far as Ethiopia’s RMG export to USA is concerned, it’s up by 15.83 per cent in volume terms and 16.22 per cent in value terms. USA imported 49.52 million SME garments from Ethiopia in Jan.-Jul. ’20 worth US $ 125 million.
Markedly, a trend of M-o-M growth can be seen from May onwards in USA apparel import which is benefitting RMG shipping countries to this market but there is still a huge gap between 2019 and 2020 in the export figures of all countries except these three.
