According to statistics from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the value of Spanish clothing imports in 2012 exceeded 10.8 billion euros. If textile fabrics are included, the total amount reached 14 billion euros, and the industry’s trade deficit was 3.38 billion euros. Among them, clothing and textiles from China, Turkey, Bangladesh and Morocco account for half of the imports of such products. At the same time, these countries are also the main suppliers of large clothing chain groups such as Spanish Inditex, Mango, Cortefiel and El Corte Inglés. However, in recent years, as more and more companies choose to produce textile and apparel products in neighboring regions or countries such as Turkey, Morocco, Portugal and Italy, Spain’s clothing imports from mainland China decreased by 9% last year, compared with 2009. remained unchanged year on year.
Luis Lara, a professor at Spain’s ISEM Fashion Business School, said that due to the increasing manufacturing costs in remote production areas, and the need to place orders 2 to 3 months in advance for new product manufacturing, this not only increases the business risks of the company, but also increases the Inventory risk, therefore, nearby production will be the trend of the Spanish clothing industry in the future. In addition, the production cycle must be short and fast to meet the rapidly changing market demand for fashionable clothing of the season.
In the past year, Spain imported 836.5 million euros of clothing from Italy, accounting for 8% of the total clothing imports. This has a lot to do with the “China Town” located on the outskirts of Florence. There are more than 3,000 textile factories here. Although they are in the “China Town”, they are actually made in Italy. Nowadays, it has become the supplier of many European fashion chain brands. land.
At present, more than 50% of the apparel and textile production of the Spanish Inditex Group is concentrated in the country, Portugal, Turkey and Morocco. About 1/3 of the products are produced in Asia, and the rest are also concentrated in Europe and the Americas. The group maintains close relationships with its suppliers, supervises and enforces labor health and safety production practices on their suppliers.
Another well-known Spanish brand of mango has a relatively diverse origin. Its supply factories are roughly distributed in mainland China (40%), Vietnam (17%), Morocco (11%), Turkey (11%) and India (7%). Locally, it mainly adopts two production methods: direct purchase of finished products (75%) and the company purchases raw materials and then manufactures them from suppliers (25%). The mango brand said it hopes to increase the proportion of the latter, purchasing raw materials from Asia and other places and then moving manufacturing to countries near Spain, which can save costs even more.
The production areas of clothing brand Catalonia are mainly distributed in Asia (India and mainland China) and Europe (Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco). Asia is responsible for the production of clothing products with complex fabric patterns and colors, while European suppliers mainly produce leather products. products.
Although the transfer of origin is a trend in the future, for now, Asia is still the main supplier of Spanish clothing and textiles. Especially the proportion of manufacturing in Bangladesh is constantly increasing, mainly because the country’s labor costs are extremely low.
