Garment market numbers, by product and by country
Six short pages in buying order: what is being made and where, whether your market is ordering, who trades it, what the box costs, the country costs behind each origin, and the reading course.
Twelve garment categories, each with the countries that actually make it, sitting beside what Europe and America imported and from whom, one short page a step. The point of keeping them on one desk is comparison: you can see that the country cheapest on cloth is not always the country cheapest at your door once freight and duty are in. Every figure names its source, and where a number is our own arithmetic rather than somebody else's publication, the page says so. Read the caveat at the top of the products page before you quote anything from here.
Next trade tables read Sat 14 Nov, 10:00 PKT
How to read this desk six stops, in buying order
Read these in this order
Six stops. Each opens the short page that holds its module, and each says what a reading you can ignore looks like next to one that deserves a second look.
- Start with your own product, not the total
Forty garment lines in twelve groups, each opening to the twelve supplier countries that ship it, with twelve months of value and the price per piece, and the latest month beside them.
No action needed when your product group is growing at roughly the rate of the total, and your supplier country is holding its share of it.
Worth a second look when your country is falling while the group grows. That is share moving to somebody else, and it usually shows up in a trade table months before anyone tells you.
- Then check whether your market is ordering
EU27 imports by supplier and the Eurostat survey of what European clothing retailers expect their own order books to do, plus the UK separately through HMRC.
No action needed when the retailer order expectations balance is flat or improving and import values are steady year on year.
Worth a second look when the survey balance falls while import values still look fine. The survey is what retailers expect, so it turns before the customs data does.
- And the same question for the United States
US apparel imports by supplier country over the last twelve months, with the latest month beside them, from official trade statistics rather than anyone’s newsletter.
No action needed when your country’s twelve months are moving roughly with the all countries total, and the latest month is not far off the same month last year.
Worth a second look when your country’s twelve month change is falling well behind the total. That is US business moving to somebody else, and the latest month shows whether it is still going.
- A market most product data skips: the Gulf
Who supplies Saudi Arabia, the largest apparel market in the Gulf, as shares of its imports, knitted and woven separately.
No action needed when the shares are moving slowly. Supply into the Gulf is long settled programmes, and a settled table is the normal reading.
Worth a second look when a supplier several sailing weeks further away holding a multiple of the near countries’ share. That is either a real capability gap or an opening, and the table cannot tell you which.
- Work out what the box actually costs
Container rates converted into cents per kilo at four realistic load weights, so a lane rate becomes a number you can put in a cost sheet.
No action needed when the composite is flat week to week and you are not shipping into a holiday peak.
Worth a second look when rates climb several weeks running. On bulky knitwear the freight per kilo is far higher than on dense woven, so the same lane move hurts two products very differently.
- Sanity check the country before you move production
Wages, electricity, logistics performance and the tariff your goods pay into the US and the EU, for seven sourcing countries side by side.
No action needed when you are comparing countries on all of the inputs rather than on the quoted FOB alone.
Worth a second look when a headline saying one country is now cheaper. The panel deliberately refuses to publish a single ranking score, and it lists the six things it cannot measure.
Reference points, not advice. They describe what the numbers have done, and they do not know your quality, your terms or what you have already covered.
Two pages belong open beside this desk, because the arithmetic finishes there rather than here: import duty by market, which decides what a piece costs once it has cleared the border, and the costing calculators, which turn a factory price into a landed one.
The six pages of this desk
In buying order. Each page carries its own tables and charts, with the explanation under every one, and the pages link to each other in sequence.
Products and prices
Forty garment lines in twelve groups, each opening to the supplier countries and the price per piece. Start here, and read the caveat first.
Demand by market
What European retailers say they will order, EU27 and UK imports by supplier, who supplies US clothing, and who supplies Saudi Arabia.
Trade flows
The rest of the world a year at a time: clothing trade by country, the largest partners of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, knitted and woven product by product, and India month by month.
Freight and landed cost
Freight as cents per kilo at four load weights, the South Asian lanes both ways, and the tools that give a live rate. Apparel fills a box long before it reaches the weight limit.
Origins and country costs
Wages, power, logistics and tariffs for seven sourcing countries side by side, each with its year. The panel behind any "should we move the order" question. Page 6 of 6Reading course
The whole path for a brand or retailer: numbered stops across every page on the site, each with a line saying why it comes there.Every table and chart on this desk
One line each, in the order a buyer reads them. Each link opens the page that holds it.
- What is being made, and where Start here. It tells you which products are moving and out of which countries.
- Read this first What a unit value is and what it hides. The one thing that makes every number below either useful or misleading.
- What retailers say The European Commission’ retail confidence and order expectation balances. A statement of intent, months ahead of the shipment.
- EU27 imports Value, weight and euro per kilogram for knitted and woven apparel by supplying country, the last twelve months against the twelve before, with the latest month on its own.
- The United Kingdom The same, counted separately since it left the single market, from HMRC rather than Eurostat.
- United States Which countries supply US clothing, from the official import statistics.
- The rest of the world, a year at a time Annual clothing trade for the countries that make it and the three markets that buy most of it, biggest seller first, so you see the whole board rather than one corner of it.
- Who trades clothing with whom The ten largest customers and the ten largest suppliers of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh for knitted and woven clothing, with value and share of the whole.
- Knitted and woven, product by product Chapter 61 and chapter 62 each on its own table for the same countries, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh first. Bangladesh is what America, Europe and Britain say they bought from it, because it has filed nothing itself since 2018.
- India, month by month The last twelve months India has filed for knitted clothing, woven clothing and clothing as a whole, sold out and bought in, with a chart of the exports.
- Who supplies Saudi Arabia The supplier mix of the largest Gulf market, as shares of the total rather than as values.
- Container freight Box rates as cents per kilo. Apparel fills a container long before it reaches the weight limit, which is exactly why this is misread.
- Freight, South Asian lanes both ways What three carriers asked to move a box out of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, how far that freight moved through the year, what the run back from Europe costs, and the surcharge on cloth and trim coming in from China. Dated carrier announcements, because no free freight index covers these lanes.
- In from China and the Far East The one China to South Asia number any carrier publishes, seven readings across five months, and the plain finding that nobody publishes the run home the other way.
- Where to get a live rate Seven carrier and marketplace rate tools, each marked with whether it hands you a number without an account. Tested by opening every one of them.
- Country costs Wages, power and tariffs by origin, each with its year, behind any "should we move the order" question.
- The whole path, for a brand Numbered stops across every page on the site, in the order to meet them, each with a line saying what it is and why it comes there. The course for a brand or retailer.
Cotton and polyester, briefly
Cotton and polyester prices sit two to four months upstream of a garment quotation, so they explain a price move you are being told about now rather than predict the one coming next. If a supplier attributes an increase to raw material, the fibre page is where you check whether the fibre actually did that, and by how much.
Common questions
How current are these numbers?
Each block on the page carries the date it was last read and the publication it came from. Trade statistics run months behind by nature, because they are compiled after the goods have already moved, so treat them as the shape of the trade rather than as this week's news. The sources page lists what publishes next and when.
Which country is cheapest for garments?
The question has no answer in the abstract, which is why the answer starts with your own product rather than the country. Cheapest at the factory gate, cheapest landed at your door and cheapest to work with are three different rankings, and duty can reverse all three. Work your own product through the cost sheet before you pick a country.
Can I quote a customer from these figures?
No, and the page warns you at the top before you quote anything. These are market wide figures for choosing a direction. A quote needs your specification, your quantity, your route and your terms, and only a factory can give you that. Use these to decide where to ask, then ask.
Which figures here are yours rather than somebody else's?
The page marks them. Anywhere we have combined two published series, converted a unit or averaged a range, it is labelled as our own arithmetic in the sources section, with the inputs named so you can redo it. Nothing paid for is copied, and nothing is presented as official that is not.