World Textile Trade and Production Trends

Part 1: Global Trends in Production and Consumption

The report opens at world scale. A chapter on fibre demand and production trends covers world fibre demand and the competition between fibre types. A second chapter follows textile and clothing demand and production trends: technical change and developments, demand for textile products, the changing textile industrial structure, the location of textile and clothing production, and costs of production. Together the two chapters establish the forces — fibre economics, technology, costs and relocation — that the trade chapters then trace through actual flows between countries.

Part 2: Trade, Import Penetration and the MFA

International trade receives the fullest treatment. A trends chapter covers the importance of world trade in textiles and clothing, the leading trading countries, general trends, developments in regional trade flows, trade balances and the relative importance of clothing. Import penetration in developed countries is examined through export shares and how the burden of imports is shared. Trade regulation is then analysed in depth: the Multi-Fibre Arrangement — its introduction and operation, the events leading to its establishment, its renewals, the MFA in theory and practice, MFA IV covering 1986-1991, and its effect on developing countries — followed by structural adjustment under the MFA and other arrangements for trade regulation, including EC preferential arrangements, US 807 arrangements, autonomous arrangements, tariff quotas, tariff measures and non-tariff barriers. A closing chapter asks about the future for trade regulation: whether the MFA is here to stay, the US Textile and Apparel Trade Bill, the new GATT round, what happens if the MFA goes, and whether textiles is still a special case.

Part 3: Prospects by Country

The final part profiles the industries and markets country by country: the USA, Canada and Japan; Western Europe, covering the European Community and Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Greece, the Irish Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and other West European countries; the USSR and Eastern Europe; Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey; Latin America, comparing Brazil and Mexico; Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka; Asia through Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand; and China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. An appendix gives annual average exchange rates, the kind of reference table the report's 200-plus tables exemplify throughout.

The balance of the report reflects the industry it describes: developed-country companies facing rising import competition, responding with advanced technology and increased market awareness, inside a trading system still shaped by quotas and preferential arrangements. Readers use the global chapters to understand the system and the country chapters to place a specific market or competitor inside it.