Market research clothing in China

While Asia, particularly China, has enjoyed a dominant position in shoes, apparel and household textiles manufacturing for several years, makers of these items located in developed nations such as the U.S. and Canada have suffered a long period of decline. For example, over 98% of the shoes sold in America each year are imports, and the majority of these imports come from Asia. To consumers in Europe and North America, this growing reliance on Asia as a low-cost producer has meant very low retail prices for goods of reasonable quality.

However, recent increases in the value of the Chinese currency, combined with rapidly rising labor costs, have put Chinese manufacturers in a much less competitive position. Competition from very low-cost nations in Africa as well as Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and elsewhere is intense, and a large portion of apparel manufacturing formerly done in China is moving to these areas at a rapid pace. For example, Vietnam’s apparel exports to the U.S. jumped to $7.1 billion in 2012 from $6.6 billion a year earlier. China’s apparel exports to the U.S. were $29.0 billion in 2012, down slightly from 2011’s $29.3 billion.

While China continues to have a robust apparel manufacturing industry, it is moving up the industrial chain by fostering manufacturing that requires greater skills, better technology and more investment in advanced equipment. Such segments that are rapidly evolving in China include InfoTech, automobiles, trains, aerospace, medical equipment and telecommunications gear.

China’s textile and clothing exports soared from $16.89 billion in 1990 to $206.74 billion in 2010, according to the World Trade Organization. For 2011, China’s total was $253.2 billion, nearly a 23% increase. India is a distant