Based on the data of EUROSTAT, the apparel import of EU from the world has declined by 9.61% during the first eight months of 2023. That means, EU’s import from the world decreased to US$ 61.15 billion in January-August 2023 from US$ 67.66 billion during the corresponding period of 2022. In terms of quantity (measured in kilogram), EU’s clothing import also declined by 14.64 % during the same time that means to 2.56 billion KG from 3 billion.
If we look at the statistics of EU’s apparel import from Bangladesh, it has declined by 13.71% in dollar value i.e. to US$ 13.33 billion January-August 2023 from US$ 15.45 billion in January-August 2022. Quantity wise (measured in kilogram), it has also declined by 15.07% during the mentioned period which is to 770.17 million KG in Jan-Aug 2023 from 906.85 million KG in Jan-Aug 2022.
EUs import from the top sourcing country China has declined by 14.13% in dollar value to US$ 16.19 billion in January- August 2023 from US$ 18.86 billion in January-August 2022 and 13.05% in quantity measured in KG (to 695.88 million KG in January- August 2023 from 800.34 million in January-August 2022 ).
During January- August 2023, EU’s imports from Turkey the 3rd largest apparel source have declined by 10.89% in value term (to US$ 7.35 billion from US$ 8.24 billion) and 23.23% in quantity (to 244.83 million KG from 318.92 million in January-August 2022).
On the other hand, EU’s imports from India and Vietnam have declined by 7.20% and 4.41% respectively in value terms. At the same time, in terms of quantity the import from the both countries have shown 13.09% and 9.98% decline respectively.
EU’s import from the other top sourcing countries such as Cambodia, Pakistan Morocco, Sri Lanka and Indonesia declined by 8.44%, 13.17%, 13.63%, 14.95% and 20.33% respectively in value terms.
If we look at the unit price (USD value/kg), EU’s cumulative unit price of import from the world has increased by 5.89% in January-August 2023 whereas for Bangladesh it was observed only 1.60% (to US$ 17.31 from US$ 17.04). At the same time, the unit price of China, Turkey, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia were US$ 23.27, US$ 30.02, US$25.04, US$ 22.35, US$ 31.89, US$ 31.30 and US$ 31.93 respectively. It indicates that despite of being 2nd largest source Bangladesh is getting comparatively less price than the other top countries. While we are working continuously to improvise ourselves, making all the efforts to make business easier and efficient, investing so much to make the industry transparent and sustainable, the price of our products do not reflect it. So it’s time for us to become more rational and proactive while engaging our buyers in price negotiation. We need to make our buyer understand about the reality and the rational of reasonable and ethical price.
