Recently learned from the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province, affected by multiple factors, our province exported US$2.3 billion to Japan’s textile and clothing in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 4.2% year-on-year, which is an increase of 12.9 percentage points lower than the average export growth. Among them, textiles exported 600 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 13.9%; apparel exports were 1.7 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 1.1%. Looking forward to the next few months, the situation of textile and garment exports from Japan to Japan will become increasingly severe.

Qi Xueyong, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province, analyzed that the main reason for this phenomenon was the tight supply of cotton and the rapid increase in prices. Cotton prices have been rising since the end of last year, rising by 37% in the first half of this year, and domestic cotton prices have reached the highest level in 15 years. The high cotton prices will drive the prices of raw materials such as cotton yarns and cotton cloths to rise further. Textile enterprises in our province are facing greater cost pressures, and the profit space of enterprises is further compressed.

At the same time, Japan's reduction of ex-gratia tariff rates for China will reduce the competitiveness of our province's textile and garment exports to Japan. Japanese officials are preparing to revise the preferential tariff system for imports from developing countries and will cut the margin of preference. Japan's ex-gratia tariff line is 5.5 billion yen, of which about 20% is used in our country. The increase in tariffs will further increase the export price of textiles and garments to Japan and reduce the competitiveness of our products in the Japanese market. In addition, some ASEAN countries have relied on low-cost advantages to squeeze the market share of low-end textile and apparel products from Japan to Japan.