According to The Japan Textiles Importers Association report, the nation’s imports of apparel during January-June 2016 decreased by 7.0% year-on-year to 1,213.5 billion yen, but the import quantity of knitwear and woven garments together increased by 2.3% to 1,821.14 million units.
The results reflect the appreciation of the Japanese currency, which has been especially prominent this year.
Apparel imports from China decreased in both value and volume, but still occupied more than 60% of the total. The import value decreased by 12.5% to 763.5 million yen (share: down 5.2 percentage points to 62.9%), and the volume declined by 3.0% to 1,228.46 million units (share: down 3.8 points to 67.5%).
Meanwhile, apparel imports from ASEAN rose by 5.8% in value to 291.3 billion yen (share: up 3.0 percentage points to 24.0%), and by 13.1% in volume to 416.38 million units (share: up 1.3% points to 22.9%), indicating a shift of production bases to Southeast Asia.
By country, imports sharply increased in both value and volume from Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh, and the growth in value was 26.3%, 32.4% and 17.2% respectively, which were the three sharpest growths.
Itemwise, the sharpest growth in the knitwear import value was 135.6% from Myanmar, and that in the woven garment import value was 24.7% from Cambodia.