Market evolution: Womens man-made fibre garments (CN 621143) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of EU trade in women's or girls' tracksuits and other garments of man-made fibres (excluding knitted or crocheted products), classified under Combined Nomenclature code 621143, over the period 2015–2025. The product category encompasses a broad range of garments—from tracksuits and sportswear to industrial and occupational clothing—all manufactured from synthetic or man-made fibres rather than natural materials like cotton or wool.

Over the eleven-year period, the EU market for these garments underwent a fundamental structural transformation. The bloc's trade deficit in this category widened by 72.6%, driven by a simultaneous increase in imports and a decline in export value. Meanwhile, domestic production contracted dramatically, with output volumes halving. These shifts reflect broader trends in the European textile and apparel sector, including the acceleration of offshoring, evolving sourcing strategies, and the repositioning of EU-based manufacturers in global value chains. This report analyses these dynamics across three main dimensions: the divergent trajectories of imports and exports, the reconfiguration of sourcing and destination markets, and the structural vulnerability that has emerged as the EU's reliance on external suppliers has deepened.

I. The Widening Trade Deficit: A Tale of Two Trajectories

The most striking feature of the 2015–2025 period is the growing divergence between EU imports and exports of garments under CN 621143. While imports grew in both value and volume, exports experienced a notable decline in unit value despite rising tonnage—a combination that points to significant changes in the composition and competitive positioning of EU shipments.

Imports grew steadily in value, volume, and price

EU imports of women's man-made fibre garments increased from EUR 619 million in 2015 to EUR 775 million in 2025, a rise of 25.2%. Over the same period, import volumes grew from 26,676 tonnes to 30,901 tonnes (+15.8%), while the average import unit price increased from EUR 23,205 to EUR 25,070 per tonne (+8.0%).

The simultaneous rise in volume and price suggests that the EU has been sourcing not only more garments but also higher-value products from external suppliers. The peak year for import value was 2022 (EUR 854 million), coinciding with post-pandemic demand recovery and supply chain restocking, before a partial correction in subsequent years. The minimum import value over the period was recorded in 2020 (EUR 611 million), reflecting the demand shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Export value fell despite rising volumes, eroding unit prices

EU exports followed a markedly different path. While export volumes grew by 22.8% from 8,791 tonnes to 10,797 tonnes, export value declined by 11.4% from EUR 350 million to EUR 310 million. This implies a sharp 27.9% decline in export unit prices, from EUR 39,780 per tonne in 2015 to EUR 28,686 per tonne in 2025.

This combination—rising tonnage with falling prices—is consistent with a shift in the EU's export profile from higher-value finished garments towards lower-value-added products. It may also reflect increased competition from EU-based re-exporters handling goods of third-country origin rather than domestically manufactured items.

The trade deficit widened to nearly half a billion euros

The cumulative effect of these divergent trends was a significant expansion of the EU's trade deficit in this product category, from EUR -269 million in 2015 to EUR -465 million in 2025—an increase of 72.6%. The deficit was at its widest in 2022 (EUR -475 million), driven by the post-pandemic import surge, and has since stabilised at elevated levels.

II. Shifting Geographies: Sourcing Concentration and Emerging Export Partners

Behind the aggregate trade figures lie important shifts in the geographical composition of both the EU's supply base and its export destinations. These changes reveal a complex story of sourcing diversification in imports coupled with growing concentration in exports.

China remains the dominant supplier, but the share landscape is changing

China was the EU's largest single source of imports throughout the period, with shipments rising from EUR 271 million in 2015 to EUR 302 million in 2025—an increase of 11.5%. However, the most dramatic growth came from smaller suppliers, indicating a deliberate diversification of sourcing:

Two trends stand out. First, Bangladesh has emerged as a major supplier, with imports surging by 276%—a trajectory consistent with the country's broader rise as a global apparel manufacturing hub, supported by preferential trade arrangements and competitive labour costs. Second, Tunisia experienced a 163% increase, likely reflecting the EU's "nearshoring" strategy and the advantages of geographical proximity and established Euro-Mediterranean trade agreements.

In contrast, India saw its exports to the EU halve over the period, declining from EUR 77 million to EUR 38 million. This decline may reflect competitive pressures from lower-cost producers in South and Southeast Asia, as well as possible shifts in product specialisation.

Export destinations shifted towards Western markets and new frontiers

On the export side, the EU's top destinations evolved considerably:

Switzerland and the United States emerged as increasingly important markets, with exports more than doubling and rising by 77%, respectively. The dramatic rise in exports to Georgia (from virtually zero to EUR 8.8 million) is noteworthy, although its absolute scale remains modest and the coefficient of variation for this flow is extremely high (1.07), suggesting considerable year-to-year volatility.

The near-total collapse of exports to Algeria (from EUR 14.7 million to EUR 0.1 million) and the decline in shipments to Morocco stand out as the most dramatic reversals, potentially linked to changing bilateral trade conditions, currency dynamics, or shifts in local demand patterns.

The EU's import market became slightly less concentrated

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for import concentration declined from 2,276 in 2015 to 2,034 in 2025—a reduction of 10.6%. While the market remains moderately concentrated (China alone accounts for nearly 39% of import value), the growing contribution of suppliers such as Bangladesh, Tunisia, and Pakistan has diversified the EU's sourcing base, reducing single-supplier dependency.

Conversely, the HHI for exports rose sharply from 588 to 1,184—an increase of 101%—indicating that EU exports became more concentrated in fewer destination markets, notably the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland.

III. Domestic Production in Retreat and Growing Structural Vulnerability

Perhaps the most consequential trend revealed by the data is the long-term decline of domestic production within the EU, which has occurred in parallel with rising import dependence and increasing structural vulnerability of the market.

EU production volumes have halved over the decade

EU production of garments under CN 621143 declined from 50.0 million items in 2015 to 23.5 million items in 2025—a contraction of 53.1%. The decline was not linear; production fell sharply during the pandemic (reaching a trough of 19.7 million items in 2020) and partially recovered in 2021–2022, but never returned to pre-2015 levels.

Production value declined by a more modest 12.5% (from EUR 345 million to EUR 302 million), implying that the surviving domestic production shifted towards higher-value-added items. The gap between the production value decline (-12.5%) and the volume decline (-53.1%) suggests significant increases in the unit value of domestically produced garments, consistent with EU manufacturers repositioning upmarket.

Specialisation patterns reveal a fragmented European landscape

Analysis of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) across EU Member States for 2025 shows pronounced asymmetries:

Poland stands out as the most specialised EU exporter of these garments, with an RCA of 3.23. This is consistent with the country's emergence as a significant apparel manufacturing base, supported by its 991.9% increase in export value over the period. At the other end of the spectrum, Member States such as Malta (RCA 0.05), Ireland (0.10), and Hungary (0.15) show no comparative advantage, consistent with these economies having largely exited garment manufacturing.

The overall picture is one of specialisation concentrating in a handful of Central and Eastern European and Southern European Member States, while production has retreated in many Western European economies.

Net import reliance has surged, signalling deepening structural dependency

The most alarming indicator is the EU's net import reliance, which surged from 5.7% in 2015 to 39.4% in 2025—a 586% increase. This metric, which measures the share of domestic consumption satisfied by net imports, had actually been negative in some intermediate years (reaching -115.5% at its minimum, implying the EU was a net exporter in volume terms), but the long-term trajectory has been decisively upward.

This growing reliance on imports occurred simultaneously with the halving of domestic production, creating a structural vulnerability to supply chain disruptions, exchange rate fluctuations, or geopolitical tensions with major suppliers.

Supply shocks and volatility reflect the new market reality

The volatility analysis reveals that several key trade flows exhibited high coefficients of variation, indicating significant year-to-year instability. Among import flows, the United Kingdom (CV 0.83) and Myanmar (CV 0.67) showed the greatest volatility, while China (CV 0.08) and Morocco (CV 0.09) were the most stable suppliers.

On the export side, Algeria (CV 1.73), Morocco (CV 2.43), Mali (CV 3.18), Tunisia (CV 1.95), and Senegal (CV 1.90) exhibited extreme volatility, consistent with the sporadic or transactional nature of these trade flows. Several notable price shocks were detected, including a dramatic price spike in EU exports to China in 2023 (anomalous shift of 165.6%), and a similarly extreme but lower-volume shock in exports to Mali in 2022.

Conclusion

The EU market for women's man-made fibre garments (CN 621143) has undergone a profound structural transformation over the 2015–2025 period. The most defining features of this evolution are the widening trade deficit, the halving of domestic production, and the surge in net import reliance from under 6% to nearly 40%.

These trends are interrelated. As EU-based manufacturers progressively exited lower-value segments of garment production, imports—predominantly from China but increasingly from Bangladesh, Tunisia, and other emerging suppliers—filled the growing gap in domestic supply. The pandemic served as a temporary shock (depressing both production and imports in 2020) but ultimately accelerated the underlying structural trends, as the post-pandemic rebound was import-led while domestic production failed to recover fully.

The diversification of import sources, evidenced by the declining HHI, represents a partial mitigation of supply concentration risk. However, China's continued dominance (accounting for approximately 39% of import value in 2025) and the growing overall dependence on external suppliers suggest that the EU's vulnerability to supply chain disruptions in this product category has increased, not decreased.

On the export side, the sharp decline in unit prices—despite rising volumes—raises questions about the competitive positioning of EU-produced garments in international markets. The concentration of exports in a small number of Western markets (the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland now account for a growing share) adds another dimension of risk.

Looking ahead, the data suggests that the EU's role in this product segment has fundamentally shifted from a manufacturing hub towards a primarily consumption-driven market, with production increasingly limited to higher-value niches concentrated in a handful of specialised Member States. Whether this trajectory proves sustainable in an era of growing geopolitical uncertainty and supply chain fragility remains an open question for policymakers and industry stakeholders alike.