Page 27 - May-June-2019

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Trade war to hit high-end US fashion brands

dependent on specialized Chinese manufacturing

High-end US fashion brands have become more technological constraints. The report shows that
reliant on China for manufacturing, making them China’s stranglehold on the garment supply chain
more vulnerable to an increase in trade war tariffs. continues. The average retail price of clothing
manufactured in China was US$25.7 per unit back in
According to the new US study, low-end clothing the second quarter of 2018, only slightly higher than
production can easily be shifted to Vietnam, clothing from Vietnam. A year later, China’s cost
more than doubled to US$69.5 per unit.
Cambodia and Bangladesh, but high-end goods are
still made in China. However, the average retail price By the end of the first quarter of 2019, the number of
of clothing manufactured in China has more than apparel items made in China that were held in US
doubled since the start of the trade war and the US clothing retailers’ inventories were down more than
brands may be forced to stomach the tariff hike. two thirds to 8,352 stock-keeping-units (SKUs). China
still dominated the US retail market as the largest
Other countries cannot yet produce in the same supplier of new clothing items (193,774 SKUs) from
quantity or with the same quality as China due to the beginning of 2016 to late-April 2019.

Iran to increase cotton

cultivation land by 20pc

According to the Deputy Agriculture Minister of wheat, four times more than corn and colza, and
Iran, the cotton cultivation land will increase 20pc 2.5 times more than soybean production. Each job
to stand at 80,000 hectares in the existing generated in a cotton plantation creates five jobs in
Iranian year. related subsectors and services.” Furthermore, he
also added that the local textile industry needs to
Mr Hossein Shirzad was quoted saying, “Cotton produce approximately 120,000 tonnes of combed
cultivation can create six times more jobs than cotton annually.

May/June 2019