The three kings from East Asia of the textile and garment industry, South Korea, China, and Japan are amid those countries that have signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The three powerful nations are all brought together due to the one single FTA platform through the RCEP settlement.
Briefly going over how each nation handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Manufacturers and retailers in JAPAN posted a 12.3 percent decline in their revenue to ¥2,008.8 billion during fiscal 2019–20 that ended on August 31 compared to ¥22,90.5 billion in the previous fiscal.
The apparel retailers were severely affected due to lockdowns caused by the virus outbreak.
The world’s largest economy took a hit and reduced down by 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020 when compared with the previous year. The contraction for CHINA was the first economic shrinkage acknowledged in official statistics since 1976. However, China is also the only country in the world that has bounced back with the speediest recovery after getting run down by the Coronavirus outbreak.
Lastly, something came out good for VIETNAM’s garment textiles and the footwear industry in the tumultuous 2020. They got good opportunities due to signing the FTAs and hence got investments from Taiwanese enterprises. The goal is to move up the rank of country importing surgical masks to the second-largest surgical mask manufacturer in the world with a daily production capacity of 15 million units as stated by the Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF).
With the rising labor cost in China, businesses in South Korea have been observed to shift their operations to Southeast Asia and Vietnam due to cheap labor rates.
