Page 5 - 17 Cotton SA March 2019

TEXTILE SCENE

OUTLOOK ON

TEXTILES

by Helena Claassens, Cotton SA

Currently the local seed cotton harvest is COTTON HOME TEXTILES
the best since before 2000, and for various Home textiles and clothing are the final
reasons, there is an increasing interest to products in the pipeline. The estimated
produce more cotton. But what happens in volume of imports of cotton home textiles
the cotton textile pipeline? Unfortunately, showed an increase of 17% since 2016.
not much, and we are not aware of any About 84% of this volume comprises cotton
new investments or new textile mills to be towels. The volume of exports for 2018 has
built soon. been more or less unchanged from 2016.

COTTON YARN COTTON CLOTHING
The next product in the pipeline after In respect of cotton clothing, the estimated
ginning is yarn. Although the final figures value of imports for 2018 is only 0,4% more
for 2018 are not available yet, indications than in 2016. The value of imports of cotton
are that the volume of cotton yarn imports clothing represents approximately 50%
increased by approximately 12% since of total clothing imports. Exports of cotton
2016, while exports increased by 154%. clothing are only about 2% more than for
2016. During 2018, cotton clothing made
WOVEN COTTON FABRICS up about 30% of all clothing exports.
The majority (78%) of woven cotton fabrics The local textile and clothing industries
is imported from China and India. The are experiencing difficult times with no real
estimated volume of imports of cotton woven growth, while trade in cotton textiles and
fabrics increased by about 190% since clothing showed mixed results.
2016 while the volume of exports showed a
decrease of around 13%. Figure1: Estimated cotton textile imports (tonnes)
KNITTED COTTON FABRICS
Approximately 14% of the volume of
imports of all knitted fabrics is made up
of cotton. The estimated volume of imports
during 2018 increased by nearly 130%
since 2016, while the volume of exports
decreased by 40%. Cotton makes up about
20% of total exports of all knitted fabrics.

Volume 21 No 1 March 2019 | 5