Contributing to the global manufacturing of fashion

Fashion industries in countries and world regions with large consumer markets—such as in North America, the European Union, Brazil, Australia, and Japan—have focused their manufacturing industries on both domestic and export opportunities, although they generally import more apparel than they export.

Industries in countries and world regions without large consumer markets have also focused on both domestic and export opportunities, although they generally export more apparel than they import. However, as consumer markets have grown in highly populated countries, such as China and India, greater attention is being paid to both domestic and export production. In fact, China is expected to be the largest consumer market of fashion products by 2020 (Beltrami et. al., 2018).

Developing countries greatly contribute to the global manufacturing of fashion and typically focus on export markets. In fact, many developing countries rely on apparel manufacturing for their economic development and compete worldwide as low-wage production centers. For example, a significant proportion of total exports of countries including Haiti, Bangladesh, and Cambodia are from the apparel manufacturing industry in the country.

Developing countries such as Bangladesh rely on apparel manufacturing for their economic development.

Leading exporters and importers of clothing, 2017 Source: World Trade Organization, 2018.

As some of the world’s largest consumer markets for apparel, the European Union in 2017 had a 38.5% share of world imports of apparel; the United States had an 18.2% share of world imports and Japan had an additional 5.8% share.

Some countries have large fashion manufacturing industries, others, have smaller industries that are niche-oriented, and this course briefly describes the fashion manufacturing industries in world regions.