Cotton Incorporated: 2007 COTTON APPAREL IMPORT TRENDS
[2008-4-11]
The past year presented a host of business challenges to the wholesale and retail textile and apparel industries. Issues in the housing market have impacted credit conditions, slowed home textile sales, and dried up a major source of consumer borrowing, home equity. Higher oil prices have sapped consumer purchasing power and increased synthetic fiber prices. And the erosion of the dollar has raised the cost of imports, slowing retail apparel sales.
Cotton’s Share
But as the textile and apparel complex wrestles with these tough conditions, cotton products are weathering the storm. As the value of total apparel imports has climbed since the 1980s, the share of cotton-dominant apparel has climbed in step. This implies that cotton apparel imports are climbing faster than total apparel imports, reflecting burgeoning consumer preference for cotton. Cotton’s import share now stands at a record high of 60.9%, and the increase since 1989 (18.2 percentage points) is the equivalent of roughly 22 million bale-equivalents of additional cotton textiles and apparel imported since then.
Flattened Costs
Owing to the weaker dollar and slackening consumer spending, apparel imports in 2007 rose at the second-slowest rate in the last 20 years. The weaker dollar also offset the deflationary trend in apparel prices, turning cotton apparel import costs mostly flat from a year earlier. As import costs were little changed over the year, retail apparel prices saw their smallest decline in a decade. Should the dollar remain weak well into 2008, imported apparel will be less likely to resume its long-term cost slide. Retail apparel prices, in turn, could follow this trend, remaining relatively flat over 2008.
Cotton’s Share
But as the textile and apparel complex wrestles with these tough conditions, cotton products are weathering the storm. As the value of total apparel imports has climbed since the 1980s, the share of cotton-dominant apparel has climbed in step. This implies that cotton apparel imports are climbing faster than total apparel imports, reflecting burgeoning consumer preference for cotton. Cotton’s import share now stands at a record high of 60.9%, and the increase since 1989 (18.2 percentage points) is the equivalent of roughly 22 million bale-equivalents of additional cotton textiles and apparel imported since then.
Flattened Costs
Owing to the weaker dollar and slackening consumer spending, apparel imports in 2007 rose at the second-slowest rate in the last 20 years. The weaker dollar also offset the deflationary trend in apparel prices, turning cotton apparel import costs mostly flat from a year earlier. As import costs were little changed over the year, retail apparel prices saw their smallest decline in a decade. Should the dollar remain weak well into 2008, imported apparel will be less likely to resume its long-term cost slide. Retail apparel prices, in turn, could follow this trend, remaining relatively flat over 2008.
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