Visualization Analysis Of Global Cotton Textile Trade Pattern

Keywords: cotton exports, clothing imports, global map

Since 2018, the trade frictions launched by the US "301 survey" have taken on the trend of trade protectionism and begun to gradually change the existing concepts of the global cotton and textile industry, from raw material output, processing to the consumer market. A change that may change the pattern of the industry in recent decades is quietly coming. With the completion of the stockpile of cotton reserves, the supply side structure of the domestic cotton textile industry will also be spanformed. We creatively use visual method to visualize the data of the main cotton export and clothing consumption areas in the world, and strive to open a small window to observe the world's cotton textile industry to see a picture of it (Figure 1).

From September 2018 to March 2019, the total export volume of the five major cotton exporting countries in the year 2018 was the base, and the US cotton exports accounted for 44.2% of the total. The other four countries accounted for 55.8%, of which only 36.9% of Brazil and Australia accounted for 36.9% of the total export volume, which is close to the export scale of the US cotton. These figures show that the US cotton is indeed dominant in the global cotton supply today, but for our country, the substitution of other major cotton producing countries to the US cotton should not be neglected. In addition, from the global distribution of major cotton exporting countries, we can see that in the short span of one year from 2017/18 to 2018/19, US cotton exports decreased by about 14.3% compared with the same period last year, while cotton exports from Brazil and Australia grew by 75.7% and 24.4% respectively, and the US cotton exports had a significant "seesaw effect" with Brazil, Australia and other countries.

Figure the distribution of exports of major cotton exporters from September 12018 to March 2019

From September 2018 to March 2019, the total import volume of the six major garment importing areas in 2018 was the base. The total import volume of clothing imports from the 28 countries of the United States and the European Union accounted for 39.7% and 41.7% of the total trade volume respectively, while the total imports of clothing from EU, Japan, Korea and Taiwan accounted for 58.2% of the total trade volume. In addition, we can see that after the great changes in the macroeconomic environment from 2017/18 to 2018/19, the clothing consumption market was directly affected by the negative impact, but on the other hand, the European Union countries (import volume fell by 0.5%), while the US clothing imports continued to maintain a year-on-year growth rate of 6.2%. On the one hand, these data indicate that the consumption power of the US market is indeed the most powerful among the major economies as confirmed by its macroeconomic data. In addition, it shows that many aggressive trade protectionism measures implemented by the United States since 2018 have failed to bring about a short-term change in the deficit situation. This may be one of the reasons why Sino US trade friction is still in doubt. (Fig. 2).

The distribution of imports of major clothing imports from September 22018 to March 2019

It should be noted that the import volume of clothing in mainland China and Taiwan in China still maintained a year-on-year growth of 14.4% and 10.3% under the trade conflict. From the side, we can see that our country is undergoing a difficult spanition from a big producer to a big consumer country, while the garment consumption market in neighboring countries such as Japan and Korea is also growing. This is also the hope for our cotton textile enterprises to implement the "going out" strategy in the future.

In the future, it faces a series of uncertainties, but other major cotton exporters except the United States have a certain substitute ability and output. The two is the traditional clothing consumption power of the United States and the European Union and so on. Its import share will remain in the short and medium term. It is limited by the fact that the domestic clothing consumption market in China is not large in scale and the growth rate is very limited. Therefore, the current "global market" is concentrated in Europe and the United States, and it is difficult to change in the short term. Textile enterprises should not continue to indulge in the old "denominator drive" thinking in order to seek development in the changing trend of the global trade pattern. To sum up, first, from the perspective of the global cotton textile trade pattern, despite the beginning of trade friction, American cotton, as the main source of imported cotton, has imposed tariffs and other factors.