Has China really got less competitive?

Dec. 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Oxford, UK December 20, 2011
Over the past few years, it has become commonplace for apparel buyers to be heard saying China has become uncompetitive, and for China’s competitors to repeat the claim even more loudly.
In Is there an alternative to China as the dominant location for apparel sourcing?, garment industry consultancy Clothesource examines these claims, and compares them with the past few years’ sales and pricing evidence about China and its worldwide competitors.
The survey shows that, by late 2011, Chinese garment makers had stopped losing sales to other emerging-market competitors. China sold Japan 7% more garments in July-September 2011 than in 2010, for example. By September 2011, China’s share of US imports were practically their highest ever. Prices paid by US importers were 14.5% higher for clothing imported from China in September 2011 than in September 2010 – but the cost of clothes from the rest of the world were 20.5% higher than a year earlier.
“Every garment making country in the world is subject to the same pressures of rising wages, see-sawing raw material prices and ever-costlier energy” said Michael Flanagan, Clothesource CEO. “What matters for buyers is how efficiently garment makers deal with those pressures. Chinese companies, overall, are doing a better job than most of their competitors
With dozens of tables, charts and country profiles, this study concludes that the simple answer to this question is “there is no one other alternative”
But China does not dominate sourcing for every major buying country in every product category.In this study, Clothesource looks at why China dominates overall, and the areas where it does not dominate, assesses the current and evolving competitiveness of alternative locations, and makes some tentative predictions of how garment manufacturing will develop to the end of this decade.
But sourcing from China has its dangers, as the market discovered between 2010 and 2011, and Clothesource believes all buyers need to have contingency plans for a re-emergence of those dangers.


Is there an alternative to China as the dominant location for apparel sourcing? is £495

About Clothesource
Clothesource Limited, based in Charlbury, Oxford, UK and Bucharest, Romania, provides the world’s leading apparel retailers, brands and exporters with market intelligence on apparel trading and sourcing.

Contact:  Mike Flanagan, Clothesource Limited, 10,Park Street, Charlbury, OX7 3PS, UK
www.clothesource.net
+44 1608 810153; flanagan@clothesource.net
 

# # #

Clothesource Limited, based in Charlbury, Oxford, UK and Bucharest, Romania, provides the world’s leading apparel retailers, brands and exporters with quality control and market intelligence on apparel sourcing and exporting