Chain · Cotton and polyester to clothing
China ships more than half the world’s fabric, up from 44% (2024)
In 2024 China shipped 53% of the world’s fabric, up from 44% in 2019, and the largest buyers were the cut-and-sew economies: Vietnam (17%), Bangladesh (9.4%) and Cambodia (5.9%).
- 6stages from ore to product
- $445.9bnlargest stage, 2024: Clothing (knitted and woven)
- HHI 0.29chokepoint, 2024: Woven and knitted fabric
- India · GL 0.97most two-way stage, 2024: Raw cotton
The chain in 2024
Who trades each stage, 2024
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Woven and knitted fabric, 2024
World trade, 2024: $66.0bn
Woven and knitted fabric is the chain’s chokepoint in 2024: HHI 0.29, CHN 53% of exports.
The ring shows the stage of this chain the economy leads; a dashed rowan ring marks an economy with more than half of the stage’s exports. Click an economy to follow its flows (exports gold, imports teal).
Open in the explorerWhy do some economies both import and export the same stage?
- Different goods under one code. A six-digit code can hold cheap and costly versions of a product: 2506.10 covers quartzite lumps and high-purity quartz worth many times more per kilogram.
- Processing and hub trade. Goods come in, are refined or assembled, and go out again.
- Firms and regions. Firms or regions within one economy buy and sell for their own reasons, such as a firm shipping inputs to its own plants abroad.
- How trade is recorded. Under the mirror rule an economy’s imports may come from its own reports and its exports from its partners’; origin and consignment, re-exports and misclassification can make one side larger.
“↔ two-way” marks an economy whose Grubel–Lloyd index is at least 0.3 and whose exports and imports are each at least 2% of world trade in the stage. The sentences under a stage give the numbers, never the reason. How two-way trade is measured
S1 · Raw cotton and fibre feedstock
S1 · Raw cotton
- World trade, 2024$16.4bn
- Unit value, 2024$2/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.20
- 147 exportersBRA 32%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BRA Brazil | 31.5 | 16.7 |
| 2 | USA United States | 27.3 | 40.0 |
| 3 | AUS Australia | 14.2 | 7.3 |
| 4 | IND India India
| 5.7 | 8.0 |
| 5 | BEN Benin | 3.1 | – |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China | 32.3 | 23.0 |
| 2 | BGD Bangladesh | 15.4 | 13.1 |
| 3 | VNM Vietnam | 14.9 | 15.5 |
| 4 | TUR Türkiye Türkiye
| 9.3 | 10.2 |
| 5 | IND India India
| 6.0 | 8.5 |
Türkiye imports $1.5bn and exports $434m of this stage. Imports average $2/kg, exports $1.9/kg. Main suppliers: Brazil, United States, Greece. Main buyers: China, Bangladesh, Vietnam.
Raw cotton, 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
S1 · Raw cotton and fibre feedstock
S1 · PTA and ethylene glycol
- World trade, 2024$16.0bn
- Unit value, 2024$0.68/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.11
- 90 exportersSAU 19%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SAU Saudi Arabia | 18.6 | 25.7 |
| 2 | CHN China China
| 18.1 | – |
| 3 | KOR Korea | 10.7 | 9.5 |
| 4 | USA United States United States
| 9.9 | – |
| 5 | CAN Canada | 8.3 | 8.3 |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China China
| 21.9 | 42.1 |
| 2 | TUR Türkiye | 13.7 | 6.8 |
| 3 | IND India | 13.4 | 7.0 |
| 4 | USA United States United States
| 6.9 | 7.7 |
| 5 | VNM Vietnam | 6.2 | – |
China imports $3.5bn and exports $2.9bn of this stage. Imports average $0.53/kg, exports $0.77/kg. Main suppliers: Saudi Arabia, Canada, United States. Main buyers: Türkiye, Vietnam, Oman.
PTA and ethylene glycol, 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Also in another chain
This stage also feeds Oil and gas to plastics; where both chains use the same code, it is one network, shown in each.
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
S2 · Fibre and yarn
S2 · Cotton yarn
- World trade, 2024$10.2bn
- Unit value, 2024$3/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.17
- 128 exportersIND 33%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IND India | 32.8 | 26.7 |
| 2 | VNM Vietnam | 19.8 | 23.6 |
| 3 | UZB Uzbekistan | 12.0 | 8.6 |
| 4 | PAK Pakistan | 7.2 | 5.9 |
| 5 | CHN China China
| 5.8 | 7.8 |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China China
| 31.9 | 42.6 |
| 2 | BGD Bangladesh | 18.1 | 8.2 |
| 3 | TUR Türkiye Türkiye
| 4.7 | 4.9 |
| 4 | VNM Vietnam | 3.3 | – |
| 5 | PRT Portugal | 3.3 | 2.9 |
China imports $3.2bn and exports $588m of this stage. Imports average $2.4/kg, exports $4.6/kg. Main suppliers: Vietnam, Pakistan, Uzbekistan. Main buyers: Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan.
Cotton yarn, 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
S2 · Fibre and yarn
S2 · Polyester fibre and filament
- World trade, 2024$7.0bn
- Unit value, 2024$1.3/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.21
- 110 exportersCHN 42%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China | 42.4 | 33.2 |
| 2 | KOR Korea Korea
| 12.9 | 16.7 |
| 3 | THA Thailand | 6.6 | 6.7 |
| 4 | IND India India
| 5.6 | 7.1 |
| 5 | IDN Indonesia Indonesia
| 5.2 | – |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USA United States | 9.1 | 8.8 |
| 2 | EGY Egypt | 9.0 | 6.3 |
| 3 | VNM Vietnam Vietnam
| 8.7 | 8.2 |
| 4 | TUR Türkiye Türkiye
| 8.0 | 10.8 |
| 5 | IDN Indonesia Indonesia
| 4.6 | – |
Korea imports $188m and exports $899m of this stage. Imports average $1.2/kg, exports $1.4/kg. Main suppliers: China, Malaysia, Vietnam. Main buyers: United States, Türkiye, Germany.
Polyester fibre and filament, 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Upstream · S1
PTA and ethylene glycolDownstream · S3
Woven and knitted fabricSource: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
S3 · FabricChokepoint
S3 · Woven and knitted fabric
- World trade, 2024$66.0bn
- Unit value, 2024$5.8/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.29
- 203 exportersCHN 53%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China | 52.8 | 44.1 |
| 2 | TUR Türkiye | 5.1 | 4.6 |
| 3 | TWN Taiwan | 4.6 | 6.2 |
| 4 | IND India | 4.4 | 4.2 |
| 5 | KOR Korea | 4.1 | 6.3 |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VNM Vietnam | 17.2 | 13.6 |
| 2 | BGD Bangladesh | 9.4 | 8.8 |
| 3 | KHM Cambodia | 5.9 | 5.4 |
| 4 | IDN Indonesia | 4.8 | 4.9 |
| 5 | MAR Morocco | 3.5 | – |
Woven and knitted fabric, 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
The chain’s chokepoint in 2024, 2025.
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
S4 · Clothing
S4 · Clothing (knitted and woven)
- World trade, 2024$445.9bn
- Unit value, 2024$23.3/kg
- Exporter concentration, 20240.11
- 234 exportersCHN 28%
Top exporters, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world exports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CHN China | 27.9 | 30.6 |
| 2 | BGD Bangladesh | 11.4 | 9.7 |
| 3 | VNM Vietnam | 8.8 | 8.0 |
| 4 | ITA Italy Italy
| 5.4 | 4.7 |
| 5 | TUR Türkiye | 4.9 | 4.9 |
Top importers, 2024
| # | Economy | Share of world imports, % | 2019, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USA United States | 18.8 | 20.8 |
| 2 | DEU Germany Germany
| 8.6 | 9.0 |
| 3 | FRA France | 5.5 | 5.5 |
| 4 | JPN Japan | 5.1 | 6.7 |
| 5 | ESP Spain | 4.4 | – |
Germany imports $38.2bn and exports $11.0bn of this stage. Imports average $27.7/kg, exports $36.7/kg. Main suppliers: China, Bangladesh, Türkiye. Main buyers: Netherlands, Italy, Austria.
Clothing (knitted and woven), 2024: shares of world exports and imports. Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule.
Source: UN Comtrade, monthly data, HS6; 12-month sum; one side per flow (the importer's report where it filed as many months). Korea, Jan–Jul 2026: Korea Customs Service, trade by item and country (data.go.kr), fetched 31 Oct 2026.
How these numbers are made
Each chain has its own ladder of stages, one rung per step of production that customs records can see: four for clothing, eight for chips. Each stage is a set of six-digit HS codes, written down once with the rung it sits on and what else its code holds. World trade is the sum of bilateral flows under the mirror rule: the importer’s report where the importer reported that year, otherwise the exporter’s. Unit value is value over net weight, shown only where weight covers at least 80% of value. HHI is the sum of squared exporter shares; 0.15 and 0.25 mark moderate and high concentration.
Customs records see goods crossing a border, not what they were for. Production used at home, codes that hold two products and codes split by HS versions are named at the stage where they matter. Use shares, where a stage mostly goes elsewhere, come from dated sources outside trade; they scale the trail, never the map. The full method
Source: UN Comtrade, Final data, HS6; mirror rule. Updated 2 Nov 2026.