According to the General Administration of Customs statistics, in the first five months of this year, the national textile and apparel exports of 118.2 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 5.3% (in renminbi terms, an increase of 2.1%), the decline has expanded from January to April this year. Among them, textile exports were 56.83 billion US dollars, down 9.4% year-on-year (2.4% year-on-year decrease in RMB); Garment exports were US $61.37 billion, down 1.1% year-on-year (up 6.6% in RMB terms).

The emergency closure of key ports in the United States may affect trade in Asia

One wave followed another. Now, the U.S. transportation industry is facing another major test. According to Bloomberg reported that the past week has plagued the West Coast port operation disruption has not stopped, the US port of Seattle 10 began to completely shut down port cargo operations.

Major ports closer to Asia were shut down

On June 10, local time, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that the Port of Seattle was closed because the International Longline and Warehouse Workers Union (ILWU) refused to send workers to work at the container terminal.

At present, the labor dispute around the West Coast of the United States port is still ongoing. The PMA warned that a large number of U.S. exports are currently being held up at docks. West Coast port operations are critical to the U.S. supply chain, with West Coast port trade accounting for about 12% of U.S. GDP.

The Port of Seattle is one of the seaborne ports in North America that U.S. agricultural exporters rely on to ship their produce and grain. About 40 percent of jobs in Washington State, where the port is located, are trade-related.

At the same time, the Port of Seattle is also the closest port to the Far East of the United States, and the main trading countries through the port in 2022 with the United States include China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and India and many other Asian countries.

Labour unrest threatens ports across America's west coast

It is worth mentioning that the closure of the Port of Seattle is only a microcosm, since June 2, from California to Washington state across the US West Coast ports, due to pay disputes, longshoremen in key positions have slowed down work, and some workers have even gone on strike.

Shipping officials at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest container ports, warned that up to 28 ships scheduled to arrive this week were expected to face delays unless dockworkers resumed operations.

If the two sides don't reach an agreement soon, they may have to call on the Biden administration to intervene, according to people familiar with the matter.

On June 9, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Biden administration to appoint an independent mediator to help the two sides reach an agreement before the delay begins to affect U.S. supply chains. Business groups representing retailers and manufacturers are also calling on the White House to intervene. If the mediator is unable to guide the two sides to an agreement, the Biden administration would be able to invoke a federal law to force the longshoremen to resume normal operations.

Textile and apparel exports came under pressure in May, falling 13.1 percent from a year earlier

In May, China's textile and apparel exports to the world were 25.32 billion US dollars, down 13.1% year on year (down 6.7% in RMB terms). Among them, textile exports were 12.02 billion US dollars, down 14.1% year-on-year (7.8% year-on-year decrease in RMB); Garment exports were $13.3 billion, down 12.2% year on year (down 5.7% in yuan terms).

At present, the risk of global economic recession is intensifying, especially the weak market demand in developed countries. In its latest economic outlook released on June 6, the World Bank predicts that growth in advanced economies will slow from 2.6% in 2022 to 0.7% this year. Since the fourth quarter of last year, international clothing brands are generally in the destocking stage, and it is expected that the brand inventory situation and demand recovery will be improved to a certain extent in the second half of this year, but the overall export pressure of China's textile and apparel foreign trade enterprises is still large.

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