China's shipment turned positive after a continued downward trend in previous years. Italy's apparel imports from China declined by 5.35 per cent to $2.522 billion in 2021 from $2.664 billion in 2020. The imports were $3.167 billion in 2018 and $2.876 billion in 2019, on a decline since 2018, according to Fibre2Fashion’s market insight tool TexPro.
However, Bangladesh’s performance in apparel exports to Italy improved in the previous year. The number declined by 18.7 per cent to $1.296 billion in 2020 from $1.594 billion in 2019, but sharply recovered to increase by 9.46 per cent to $1.419 billion in 2021, which further jumped by 21.55 per cent in 2022, as per TexPro.
China remained the top supplier with a 16.80 per cent share in Italy's total garment imports of $16.098 billion in 2022, while Bangladesh was the second top supplier with 10.72 per cent share. Spain (9.07 per cent), France (8.30 per cent), Germany (5.77 per cent), the Netherlands (5.55 per cent), Romania (3.86 per cent), Turkiye (3.66 per cent), Belgium (3.63 per cent), and Tunisia (3.17 per cent) were among the other top 10 suppliers for Italy.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)