Affected by the slowdown of global economic growth and the deterioration of trade environment, the scale of global commodity trade will decrease in 2019. According to the world trade report 2020 issued by the World Trade Organization at the end of July, the global merchandise trade volume will reach US $19 trillion in 2019, with a year-on-year decrease of 3% and 0.1% respectively. The growth rate of trade volume is far lower than the average annual growth rate of 2.3% since the financial crisis. In 2019, the export volume of manufactured goods including textiles and clothing will decrease by 2% year on year.

Global trade in textiles and clothing also declined. According to the data of the report, the global textile and clothing export volume in 2019 is 799.63 billion US dollars, and the import volume is 839.54 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year decrease of 0.9% and 3.1% respectively. From the perspective of product structure, clothing trade is relatively more stable. In 2019, the global textile export volume was US $306.12 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%, and the clothing export volume was US $493.51 billion, a year-on-year decrease of only 0.1%.

China's textile industry has maintained a stable scale advantage in the international export market, and its share in the global total export has only slightly declined. According to WTO data, China's textile and clothing exports totaled 272 billion US dollars in 2019, accounting for 34% of global textile and clothing exports in the same period, a slight decrease of 0.2 percentage points compared with the share of 34.2% in 2018. China's textile export competitiveness has been improved. In 2019, the export value is 120 billion US dollars, accounting for 39.2% of the global textile export value, which is 1.3 percentage points higher than that in 2018, reflecting the enhanced role of China's textile fabrics, chemical fibers and other products in the international supply chain. In 2019, China's clothing exports will reach US $152 billion, accounting for 30.8% of global clothing exports, down 1.1 percentage points from 2018.



Figure 1: China's textile and garment export value and its share in the world

From the top 10 countries and regions of textile and clothing import and export, the major import and export countries and regions have little change. The export market share of Vietnam, Bangladesh and Turkey has maintained an upward trend. The import share of the United States increased while that of the European Union decreased.

Due to the UK's withdrawal from the EU and its large-scale import and export of textiles and clothing, some countries were replaced by the UK and failed to enter the list. The UK is an important consumer market in Europe, ranking 7th in textiles import and 4th in clothing import, and 8th in clothing export.

The EU ranked second in textile and clothing exports and first in imports, with an export share of 25.3%, 1.7 percentage points lower than that in 2018. Among them, the share of textile exports decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 21.7%, and the share of clothing exports decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 27.6%. The import share decreased by 5.1 percentage points to 29.4%, of which the import share of textiles decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 21.3%, and the import share of clothing decreased by 4.2 percentage points to 34.2%.

The share of the United States in the import market has increased. The share of the U.S. in the global textile and apparel import market increased by 0.3 percentage points to 15%, indicating that the U.S. economic fundamentals are generally stable in 2019. Among them, the import share of textiles increased by 0.9% to 10%, and the import share of clothing increased by 0.8% to 18.2%.

Vietnam's export share has increased. In 2019, Vietnam's textile and clothing exports totaled US $40 billion, accounting for about 5% of the global textile and clothing exports, 0.5 percentage points higher than that in 2018. The textile export ranking rose from the 8th place in 2018 to the 7th place, and the market share increased by 0.3% to 2.9%; the clothing export ranking and share remained unchanged. Vietnam's textile import share dropped slightly by 0.1 percentage point, but it surpassed China, jumping from the fourth place in 2018 to the third place.

Bangladesh's ranking remains unchanged. The import share of textiles decreased by 0.2 percentage point to 3.1%, and the export share of clothing increased by 0.1 percentage point to 6.8%.

Turkey's export share increased slightly. Turkey's ranking remained unchanged, but its textile and clothing export market share increased by 0.1% to 3.5%, of which the textile export share increased by 0.1% and the clothing export share increased by 0.1%.

India's textile and clothing export ranking and overall export share remain unchanged compared with 2018.

Table 1: Top 10 textile exports in the world in 2019

Table 2: Top 10 garment exports in the world in 2019

Table 3: Top 10 textile imports in the world in 2019

Table 4: Top 10 garment imports in the world in 2019