According to The Japan Textiles Importers Association report on November 2016 apparel imports, based on Ministry of Finance trade statistics, imports dropped 15.7% compared to the same month of 2015 to 191,918 million yen. The drop in import value is because of exchange rate fluctuations, as compared with the year before.
The November 2016 apparel import quantity decreased by 1.2% to 273.88 million units.
Imports including accessories amounted to 85,341 tons (down 1.9%) worth 220.4 billion yen (down 15.4%). January-November 2016 imports amounted to 925,524 tons (up 0.1%) valued at 2,677.7 billion yen (down 12.3%).
The share of China in apparel imports continued to decline, and in November was 63.9% in value (down 2.9 percentage points from the same month of the previous year) and 68.1% in volume (down 2.0 points). November imports from China were at 186.45 million units (down 4.1%) worth 122,688 million yen (down 19.3%).
Imports from the ASEAN region amounted to 68.02 million units (up 8.3%) worth 48,178 million yen (down 7.0%). Knitwear led imports, and the import quantity from Myanmar climbed 21.1% to 5.37 million units. The share of ASEAN rose to 25.1% in value (up 2.3 points) and 24.8% in quantity (up 2.1 points).
The November import volume of woven garments from ASEAN grew by 3.6% to 22.71 million units, and that of knitwear climbed 10.6% to 45.3 million units.