On April 14, the General Administration of Customs of China released national goods trade data for the first quarter of 2020. Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the overall foreign trade declined in the first quarter. However, due to the timely and effective control of the domestic epidemic in March, the manufacturing industry quickly resumed work and production, and the foreign trade volume rebounded significantly compared with February. In RMB terms, imports and exports fell by only 0.8% in March, of which exports fell by 3.5% and imports increased by 2.4%. In the first quarter, the country’s foreign trade import and export dropped by 6.4% cumulatively, of which exports fell by 11.4% and imports fell by 0.7%.
As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, global consumer demand declines, and the demand for optional consumer goods Suffering more obvious suppression, some customers in the U.S. and European markets canceled or postponed their import orders for my country’s textiles and clothing, causing my country’s textiles and clothing exports to decline more than the overall goods trade exports in the first quarter. Among them, clothing exports fell more than textile exports, and in the export In the product structure, for the first time, the scale of clothing exports is lower than that of textiles.
According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, in the first quarter of 2020, the cumulative exports of textiles and clothing were 316.26 billion yuan, a decrease of 15.9%, of which textile exports were 158.53 billion yuan, a decrease of 12.7%, and clothing exports. 157.73 billion yuan, down 18.9%.
From the perspective of product categories, industry exports continue to show a trend of differentiation. According to customs statistics, the year-on-year decline in exports of textiles, including yarn, fabrics, home textiles, industrial and other finished products, rebounded by 5.3 percentage points from the previous two months. The decline in exports of downstream clothing products continued to deepen compared with the previous two months. 0.6 percentage points.
In March, my country’s textile and clothing exports were 107.78 billion yuan, down 12.2%, of which textile exports were 62.31 billion yuan, down 3.1%, and clothing exports were 45.47 billion yuan, down 22.2%.
The analysis pointed out: Judging from the textile and clothing exports over the years, due to the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, the current level of decline in my country’s textile and clothing exports has even exceeded that in 2009 after the financial crisis. According to statistics, in 2009, the country’s exports of goods fell by 16.0%, and the exports of textiles and clothing fell by 10.07%. In the first quarter of 2020, the country’s exports of goods fell by 13.3%, and the decline in textiles and clothing exports deepened to 17.70%.
Looking forward to the second quarter, affected by the global spread of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, my country’s textile industry faces severe challenges in “stabilizing foreign trade” and “stabilizing employment.” The sudden cancellation or postponement of overseas orders has brought a high degree of uncertainty to the operations of domestic textile companies that have resumed work and production, highlighting various practical problems in terms of market demand, inventory, cash flow, etc. It is necessary for the government, enterprises and industry organizations to work together to take a variety of effective measures in a timely manner to win the “war for survival” in the second quarter and enhance the resilience of the industry’s future development. </p
