Japanese apparel imports in October 2017, as compiled by The Japan Textiles Importers Association based on Ministry of Finance trade statistics, climbed 24.1% in value compared to the same month of last year to 245,557 million yen.
Quantitatively, October imports grew by 13.3% to 297.37 million units.
The share of imports from China decreased, while that of ASEAN increased. Imports from China increased by 11.5% in volume and 21.4% in value to 203.00 million units worth 160,139 million yen. China’s share in Japanese apparel imports was 68.3% in volume (down 1.0 percentage point) and 65.2% in value (down 1.4 points).
Imports from ASEAN increased by 22.1% and 32.0% respectively to 75.55 million units valued at 62,142 million yen. ASEAN’s share was 25.4% (up 1.8 points) and 25.3% (up 1.4 points), respectively. Imports of knitwear from ASEAN showed sharp growth: 51.88 million units (up 33.5%) worth 28,872 million yen (up 37.9%). The presence of major garment-making countries was remarkable, such as Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam, and imports also increased from Indonesia.
Another characteristic of October apparel imports was the increase in imports from Turkey: 694,000 units (up 30.9%) valued at 1,139 million yen (up 41.1%).