China leads when it comes to clothing exporters from around the world. It has a record of having exported some $176 billion worth of garments in 2021, according to data from the World Trade Organization. China on its own made up a third of global exports that year. Next in the list comes the European Union, with $151 billion in exports. The bloc accounted for 28.1 percent of global figures. When looking at numbers on a country by country basis though, Bangladesh is the world’s second major exporter, having sold $34 billion worth of clothing abroad that year, which equated to just over 6 percent of exports.
As the infographic shows the majority of garment exports come from Asia. Next in line with biggest market is Vietnam (5.8 percent of global exports), followed by Turkey (3.5 percent), India (3 percent) and Malaysia (2.7 percent). Bangladesh is one of the countries on the list with the fastest pace of growth recorded over the past decade, with its exports increasing by 8 percent between 2010 and 2021. Malaysia and Vietnam are also noticeable because of their fast growth rate, with their exports growing by 13 sand 11 percent in that time, respectively.
In terms of the importers of clothes, the European Union tops
the list, with $195 billion worth of imports (34.1 percent of global imports)
in 2021, followed by the United States with $106 billion (18.5 percent of
imports). There’s then a gap until Japan with $27 billion (4.6 percent) and the
United Kingdom with $23 billion (4 percent). Although China is the world’s
manufacturing superpower, it still spent $12 billion on importing clothes in
2021.
One of the main reasons of so many clothes being bought from
countries on this list is due to companies outsourcing production in order to
receive low prices from third world countries because of low wages.
