Textile Demand Increase Will Offset Loss in Market Share

摘要

The world textile industry has seen fundamental changes in the past decades, mainly associated with two major developments: First, the integration of the textile sector into the general framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994 after more than 40 years initiated the termination of the traditional quota-regime by the end of 2008. Second, the gradual opening of the Chinese economy in the early 1980s and later, when China was formally integrated into the framework of the WTO at the end of2001, accelerated the process that is generally known as globalization. Both developments have led to an ever more integrated world economy and have certainly contributed to the immense increase in global trade. Global trade of manufactured goods soaredabout 250% between 1990 and 2009 to about $8.4 billion. During that time, global trade in textiles doubled to about $211 billion. For clothing, worldwide trade surged 192% to $316 billion. The global financial and economic crisis led to an unseen decline in demand and investment which resulted in shrinking GDPs, lower trade, higher unemployment levels and saving rates, and finally, a recession in most of the industrialized countries.