Apparel and textile imports to the U.S. increased by 2.8 percent or 8.0 billion square meters equivalent (SME) in October versus 7.8 billion SME a year earlier, according to the Office of Textiles and Apparel of the U.S. Department of Commerce (OTEXA).
Those numbers show a marked contrast from the first 10 months of 2023 compared with the same 2022 time frame, where shipments declined 15 percent or 78.8 billion SME for January–October this year, down from 92.7 billion SME for the same period last year.
China showed an increase of 8.5 percent year-on-year for October, versus 9.5 percent year-on-year for the same 2022 month, according to OTEXA, which reported 3.0 billion SME in October this year, versus 2.7 billion SME a year earlier.
Vietnam’s shipments to the U.S. were down 16.5 percent or from 5.9 million SME in October last year to 4.9 million SME this year.
Turkey’s shipments fell by 3.1 percent or to 5.1 million SME this year from 5.2 million SME in October of last year.
According to OTEXA, imports to the U.S. from Israel rose 604 percent in October over the same month in 2022, shipping 2 million SME in October this year versus 0.29 million SME a year ago.
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Egypt’s exports to the U.S. were up 45.6 percent when it shipped 2.9 million SME, compared to 2.0 million SME.
Malaysia’s U.S. shipments rose 97.6 percent, or an increase to 4.9 million SME, according to OTEXA. That is in sharp contrast to calendar year 2021 versus calendar year 2022, when shipments increased by 349.6 percent, or to 4.1 million SME in 2022 over 9.2 million SME the year before.
Imports to the U.S. from Pakistan rose 14.5 percent. It shipped 2.8 million SME compared to 2.5 million SME.
Shipments to the U.S. from India decreased by 9.7 percent. The South Asian nation shipped 7.8 million SME versus 8.7 million SME a year earlier.
The Czech Republic was down by 33.3 percent this year over last. It shipped 7.8 million SME versus and 1.2 million SME.
Imports to the U.S. from Mexico were up by 32.8 percent, an increase from 2.4 million SME in October 2022 to 3.3 million SME in October of this year.