China is a major exporter of denim jeans – men’s and women’s to the EU.
China is very competitive price wise and seems to have been continuously investing in improving quality also. The exports from China to EU have been continuously rising and China is currently the largest exporter of denim jeans/breeches to EU27.
Let’s have a look at the figures of exports of denim jeans/breeches from China to EU27
| Year | Jeans Exported (million pcs ) | Total Value (Euro) |
% inc. in qty. over last year | Av. Price per pc CIF (Euro) |
| 2007 | 101.24 | 559.42 | +51.82% | 5.53 |
| 2008 | 180.85 | 827.13 | +78.63% | 4.57 |
| 2009 | 195.80 | 926.71 | +8.26% | 4.73 |
For the years 2007 and 2008, China has experienced a phenomenal growth in exports of denim jeans with more than 50% and 78% growth in the two years respectively. This kind of growth in exports over an existing large base is really good and shows the power of Chinese denim manufacturers to compete with the rest of the world , specially their competitiors like Bangladesh , Vietnam etc who are cheaper to them. During 2009, the growth in exports slowed down during to general slowdown in Europe , but still maintained decent 8% plus levels. We may see decent increase in exports in the year 2010 also.
However, this growth that we are witnessing in the last 3 years would fade in comparison to the growth of 960% !that China got in the year 2005 over 2004 when quotas were lifted. China was only restricted by the quota regime and currently nothing seems to hold it back.
Price wise , Chinese exports have registered slight downfalls but their prices still cannot be called as the cheapest as there are other countries exporting at lower prices. But China will not always remain very price competitive. It has issues on its currency – which it may have to devaluate slowly – and it may not always be able to provide the kind of export subsidies it is currently providing with export tax rebate at 16%.
Note: The EU27 region comprises of the following countries -:
Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Ireland , Italy ,Latvia , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Slovak Republic , Slovenia ,Spain , Sweden and United Kingdom.
