Did the import unit price of Japan's textile and apparel drop?

Japan' s textile and apparel import demand in Sep recovered month-on-month but still remained sluggish

The latest data showed that Japan' s textile and apparel import volume in Sep reached 242kt, up 0.2% year-on-year and 4.4% month-on-month respectively, but was 7.2 percentage lower than that in the same period of 2019. Japan imported more than 144kt in textile and apparel from China, down 1.7% year-on-year but up 9.5% month-on-month respectively, and 3.1 percentage lower than that in the same period of 2019, indicating that Japan's textile and apparel import demand was still recovering and did not recover to pre-Covid level. During Jan to Sep, Japan' s textile and apparel import volume reached 1929kt, up 2.4% year-on-year, but was 4.6 percentage lower than that in the same period of 2019. Japan imported more than 1047kt in textile and apparel from China, up 2.9% year-on-year but 0.1 percentage lower than that in the same period of 2019, indicating that although Japan' s textile and apparel industry was recovering in the first three quarters, it still performed poorly compared with that of the United States and the European Union.

From the seasonal changes of Japan's textile and apparel imports over the years, most of the time the annual imports peak was in September-October, while the high point of the imports from China also occurred in Sep. In Sep this year, Japan' s textile and apparel imports reached the highest monthly volume from January to September. A new high may be in October.

Japan' s textile and apparel imports value in Sep were 357.04 billion yen, down 1.9% from the same period last year, up 5.2% from the same period last year, and 9.6% from the same period in 2019. Japan imported 223.64 billion yen in textile and apparel from China, up 2% year-on-year and 10% month-on-month respectively, but was 9.6 percentage lower than that in the same period of 2019, indicating that the recovery of Japan' s textile and apparel import value was not as good as that in volume.

Theoretical monthly average unit price of Japan' s textile and apparel varied greatly

The changes in the import volume and value of Japan' s textile and apparel were different, which may be due to the influence of the import product structure and unit price of textile and apparel.

Note: average unit price=import value/import volume

It can be seen that the monthly average import unit price of Japan' s textile and apparel was fluctuating during 2016-2019, while the price fluctuated sharply last year due to the pandemic. In the first half of last year, the proportion of the epidemic prevention materials was large, and the unit price rose, so the actual import unit price was also at a high level, and then gradually fell back. Since the second half of last year, the unit price showed downward and then an upward trend. The price rise accelerated from June to September this year, rising from 1285yen/kg in May to 1474yen/kg in September, up 14.8%.

The trend of the theoretical monthly average import unit price of Japan' s textile and apparel from China was similar to that of the total unit price, but the price was the lowest in June, rising 14.4% from 1,358yen/kg in June to 1,553yen/kg in September. The monthly average unit price also had a certain seasonality, but like the total unit price, the average import cost has indeed dropped greatly this year. What problems can cause the large fall?

Theoretical import average price of Japan' s apparel in September declined, mainly because the price fluctuation and structure of textile semi-finished products and manufactured goods led to a rise in unit prices.

With the change of season, the product category varied, so the unit price also changed greatly. Total monthly unit price generally showed downward from February to May, an upward trend from June to August, decreased again from September to November, and increased from December to January. Although changes in the types of imported products and origins led to changes in the theoretical average unit price, from the theoretical data, the comprehensive cost of Japan's textile and apparel imports this year was lower than that in previous years, which seemed to deviate from the sharp rise in commodity prices caused by inflation in China and the beyond. However, in terms of consumption in China's end-users market, the prices of end products such as apparel and home textiles have not risen significantly this year. On the contrary, there were many discounts, so the actual end-users retail did not rise sharply as in the midstream and upstream, but the profit distribution changed.