Market evolution: Knitted sportswear (CN 6112) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the trade dynamics of CN 6112 — a product heading covering track-suits, ski-suits, and swimwear in knitted or crocheted textiles — within the European Union's external trade from 2015 to 2025. Over this decade, the EU's trade position in this category shifted fundamentally. The trade balance deepened from a deficit of €627.8 million in 2015 to €799.7 million in 2025. While both imports and exports grew in value, the structural divergence between them — particularly the near-doubling of import volumes alongside collapsing EU production — reveals a market increasingly shaped by offshoring, price compression from Asian suppliers, and a growing reliance on external sourcing.

The analysis is structured around three main findings: the structural transformation of the EU's sourcing geography, the erosion of domestic manufacturing capacity, and the diverging price dynamics between EU imports and exports.

1. A Sourcing Revolution: The Shift from China to South and Southeast Asia

The EU's import portfolio diversified substantially away from China

The top import partners by value tell a clear story of geographic diversification. While China remained the single largest supplier — growing modestly from €422.8 million to €448.3 million (+6.0%) — its relative dominance eroded as several Asian economies surged ahead:

Import concentration decreased, reflecting deliberate supply-chain diversification

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for imports by value fell from 2,766 in 2015 to 1,996 in 2025 — a decline of 27.8%. This indicates a meaningful reduction in supplier concentration. The shift is consistent with EU importers actively pursuing a "China-plus-one" strategy, spreading production across multiple lower-cost countries to mitigate geopolitical and supply-chain risks.

Brexit caused a sharp reorientation of intra-European trade flows

The United Kingdom presents a striking anomaly. As an import partner, UK-sourced deliveries into the EU collapsed by 61.8%, from €68.4 million to €26.1 million. This reflects the reclassification of UK trade from intra-EU to extra-EU following Brexit, combined with the introduction of customs formalities that disrupted previously seamless flows. UK imports also exhibited the highest volatility among the top seven import partners, with a coefficient of variation of 0.87.

2. The Hollowing Out of EU Production Capacity

Domestic output of knitted sportswear contracted dramatically

EU production data reveals the most alarming trend in the dataset. Production quantity (in number of items) fell by 65.1%, from 66.9 million pieces in 2015 to just 23.3 million in 2025. Production value declined less steeply — by 24.8%, from €530.5 million to €399.1 million — indicating that the surviving EU production has moved toward higher-value segments. However, the magnitude of the volume collapse signals a structural retreat from mass-market manufacturing.

The trade deficit widened despite export growth because imports surged even faster

EU exports grew 46.5% in value (from €212.1 million to €310.8 million), but imports grew 32.2% from a much larger base (€840.0 million to €1,110.5 million). More critically, import volumes nearly doubled (+98.8%, from 33,577 tonnes to 66,737 tonnes), while export volumes grew only 11.8% (from 3,216 to 3,596 tonnes). This divergence explains why the net import reliance nearly doubled from 33.4% to 64.8% — the EU is now sourcing almost two-thirds of its knitted sportswear consumption from outside its borders.

Only a few EU member states retain meaningful specialisation

The revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) analysis for 2025 shows that Croatia (RSCA = 0.82) and Poland (RSCA = 0.30) are the only EU members with a strong comparative advantage in this product. Poland's emergence is notable: its exports grew 290.6% over the period, from €6.7 million to €26.3 million, suggesting that Central European manufacturers have carved out a niche. By contrast, Ireland (RSCA = −0.91), Luxembourg (−0.84), and Malta (−0.80) show no competitive positioning in this category.

3. Diverging Price Dynamics: Falling Import Prices, Rising Export Prices

Import unit prices declined sharply, signalling intensified cost competition from Asia

The most striking price dynamic is the collapse in EU import unit prices, expressed per tonne. Average import prices fell 33.5%, from €25,014/t to €16,633/t, even as volumes nearly doubled. This suggests that new Asian suppliers — particularly Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Cambodia — are competing aggressively on price, compressing margins across the category. The supplementary unit price (per piece) tells a somewhat different story, rising 17.4% (from €4.35 to €5.11), which implies a shift toward importing lighter-weight garments (lower mass per unit), possibly reflecting the growing dominance of swimwear and lighter synthetic track-suits.

EU exports command significantly higher unit values than imports

The export price per tonne rose 30.7%, from €65,953/t to €86,230/t — roughly five times the import price. This premium reflects the EU's positioning in higher-quality, branded, or technical sportswear segments. The price gap widened over the decade, suggesting that EU producers are increasingly specialising in premium products rather than competing in volume-driven categories.

The synthetic track-suit and women's swimwear segments dominate imports

The product segment breakdown reveals that two sub-products account for the vast majority of EU import volumes in 2025:

Women's synthetic swimwear (611241) and synthetic track-suits (611212) together represent over 60% of total import volume. Both segments experienced dramatic volume surges — particularly in 2024, when 611241 imports spiked to over 50,000 tonnes before moderating in 2025. The ski-suit sub-product (611220) remains marginal, with volumes never exceeding 142 tonnes and negligible supplementary-unit reporting.

Conclusion

The EU market for knitted sportswear (CN 6112) underwent a profound structural transformation between 2015 and 2025. The most consequential trend is the near-total shift of mass-production capacity offshore: domestic output fell by nearly two-thirds by volume, while import volumes nearly doubled. The sourcing geography diversified significantly, with Bangladesh, Vietnam, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Cambodia collectively displacing China's former near-monopoly — a shift accelerated by geopolitical uncertainty and deliberate supply-chain risk management.

Simultaneously, the EU's remaining production and export profile has moved upmarket. Export unit values now exceed import prices by a factor of five, and only a handful of member states (notably Poland and Croatia) retain meaningful competitive specialisation. The result is a market where the EU has traded manufacturing depth for consumer price benefits, at the cost of heightened import reliance — net import reliance reached 64.8% by 2025, and trade intensity surpassed 94%. This concentration of sourcing in Asia, while diversified across multiple countries, leaves the sector exposed to supply-chain disruptions, currency fluctuations, and potential regulatory shifts in trade policy.