China and Vietnam supplied apparel worth $13.149 billion to Japan in first nine months of this year. Vietnam alone shipped apparel worth $2.839 billion in the period, according to Fibre2Fashion’s market insight tool TexPro.
Along with geographical proximity with Japan, an understanding of buyers’ choices and quality preferences play a vital role in making China and Vietnam the top suppliers. It is believed in industry circles that Japanese buyers are particular and strict in terms of quality and standards of the products they buy.
China and Vietnam collectively supplied 71 per cent of the total apparel imported by Japan during January-September 2022. China’s exports to Japan were worth $10.310 billion or 55.76 per cent of the country’s total imports of $18.490 billion in the period under review, while Vietnam was the second largest supplier with a 15.35 per cent share.
The other countries that make it to the list of top 5 exporters to Japan include Bangladesh (5.44 per cent), Cambodia (4.98 per cent) and Myanmar (4.19 per cent). Indonesia, Italy, Thailand, India, and Malaysia are the other suppliers enlisted as the top ten suppliers. But their share of supply was less than 3.2 per cent each, as per TexPro.
In the year 2021, Japan imported apparel worth $23.804 billion. China’s share in it was 58.30 per cent with supply valued at $13.878 billion, while Vietnam’s share was 14.49 per cent valued at $3.450 billion. The other top 10 exporting countries had a marginal share in 2021.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)
