Burma best-performing major 2016 supplier: Cambodia, India, Philippines and Morocco do worst

Burma showed the strongest growth among apparel suppliers to developed countries in 2016, as the total volume shipped worldwide fell for the first time in five years .

Clothesource Tradetrak measures the square metreage of apparel shipped into the EU (including the UK), US and Japan. In 2016, that volume fell 2.4% overall: the decline in EU imports was 4.7%, in US imports  1.1%, while Japanese imports increased very marginally at 0.04%.

Imports from China fell 3.7%, but grew 2.9% from the EU’s neighbours and 0.3% from America’s neighbours. From sub-Saharan Africa they fell 2.9%, while they also fell 4% from South Asia and 1.7% from South-East Asia.

The top 20 supplying countries provided 95% of all apparel imports. Burma (+20%) and Turkey (+16%) showed the strongest growth – though Burma’s string percentage growth merely brought its exports up to 5% of low-price dominator Bangladesh.

The biggest shock was probably the fall in India’s exports by 13.4%, as its much-touted “New Textile Strategy” and “Make in India” programmes failed to make any headway outside its own propaganda.