Textile and Apparel Imports Fall but Shipments from Latin America Rise

The Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel reports that monthly imports of cotton, wool, manmade fiber, silk blend, and non-cotton vegetable fiber textile and apparel products totaled 5.29 billion square meter equivalents in February, down 5.7 percent from January but up 12.4 percent from February 2017. Textile imports totaled 3.01 billion SME, down 5.6 percent for the month but up 15.0 percent from the previous year, while apparel imports of 2.28 billion SME were down 5.8 percent from January but up 9.2 percent from a year before.

Overall Imports. Total year-to-date imports were 10.9 billion SME, up 7.1 percent from the previous year, as textile imports gained 9.3 percent to 6.2 billion SME and apparel imports rose 4.4 percent to 4.7 billion SME.

For the year ending in February imports were 65.6 billion SME, up 4.5 percent from a year earlier, as textile imports increased 6.6 percent to 38.3 billion SME and apparel imports rose 1.7 percent to 27.3 billion SME.

Source Countries. OTEXA has reported the following statistics on textile and apparel imports from major source countries for February 2018.