The US is projected to improve significantly in volume-wise apparel imports in the year 2017. The country might note a 1.04 per cent rise in volume terms during the January to December 2017 period, as per Apparel Resources’ data projection.
The largest apparel importer in the world is likely to import 27,164.17 million SME of apparels during the review period as against 26,927 million SME in the prior-year period.
In addition, the country is likely to put a pause on the rising import values in 2017 and note a 0.68 per cent decline on the Y-o-Y basis.
The UVR for the said period is predicted to be US $ 2.95 as against US $ 3.00 in the same period of 2016.
Further, China’s reign as the apparel powerhouse to the US will witness a dip, as the biggest sourcing destination in the world might fail to see positive changes in the values of exported apparels to the US.
As per the available data from January to October period, China noted a surge in volume of exports by 1.93 per cent; however, the country dropped the unit prices of apparel to stay competitive in the global market.
Apparel Resources’ predictions indicate that China’s export apparels to the US worth US $ 27.04 billion would drop by 3.14 per cent on the Y-o-Y basis in December 2017.
India and Vietnam, on the other hand, are likely to gain in both volume and value terms to the USA during January to December 2017 period.
Vietnam is set to clock US $ 11.43 billion (up by 5.79 per cent) from its apparel exports in the year 2017 ending 31st December.
India is likely to see a marginal surge of 1.79 per cent (with an export value of US $ 3.70 billion in 2017 as against US $ 3.64 billion in 2016) in its apparel exports value to the US.
Moreover, all through 2017, Bangladesh’ apparel exporters faced the challenges such as the fluctuation in the currency value (appreciation of Taka against US dollar), longer shipping time, the rise in production cost and safety issues which pushed the country towards the declining trend in the US clothing market.
Bangladesh is projected to export apparels to the US market worth US $ 5.08 billion with a notable drop of 4.26 per cent on the Y-o-Y basis in the review period.
For detailed analysis, please download the report here: https://www.slideshare.net/apparelresources/usa-trade-data-report-jan-to-dec-2017
Note: Reports for the year (2017) end by various data analytics firms are yet to be released.