The total apparel import by USA from the world has reached US$ 13.22 billion in Jan-Feb 2023 which was US$ 14.99 billion during the same period of 2022, which means U.S.’s global import has gone down by US$ 1.77 billion (11.86% negative year-over-year growth). On the contrary, during the mentioned period USA’s apparel import from Bangladesh has reached US$ 1.47 billion in Jan-Feb 2023 from US$ 1.43 billion in Jan-Feb 2022, up by 40 million dollars or 2.39% year-over-year.
Following the usual trend, China tops the list from where USA has imported US$ 2.53 billion worth of apparel for the above mentioned period, which was US$ 3.59 billion in Jan-Feb 2022. USA’s import from China has declined by US$ 1.06 billion or 29.65% year-over-year. Vietnam is consecutively second in the list with 17.86% share of USA’s total clothing import. Apparel import of USA from Vietnam was US$ 2.36 billion in Jan-Feb 2023 which was US$ 2.64 billion in Jan-Feb 2022, showing 10.63% year-over-year negative growth; in monetary term import from Vietnam declined by 280 million dollars.
Among the top 10 sourcing apparel countries of USA, all the countries have shown negative year-over-year growth except Bangladesh and India. During January-February of 2023, imports from Indonesia, Cambodia, Mexico, Pakistan, Honduras and South Korea declined by 7.07%, 29.05%, 2.36%, 20.85%, 10.97% and 14.11% year-on-year respectively.
If we look at the statistics, in value-wise USA’s apparel import from Bangladesh has shown positive growth, but in volume wise in per square meter equivalent (SME) the quantity has declined by 14.41% year-over-year. On the other hand, if we consider the unit price, it is indicated that the unit price of the apparel imported by USA from Bangladesh has increased by 19.63% in the January-February of 2023 compared to the same period of 2022 while their overall unit price also grew by 16.33% reflecting the impact of inflation and production cost hike. Since we are giving priority to product diversification and value addition, a few of our factories export high-end products which resulted in this significant growth. The high inflation rate due to current geopolitical tension is another reason behind this growth in value terms.
