A record number of US fashion companies no longer list China as their top supplier, the result of growing diplomatic uncertainty and concerns about forced labor.
About 61% of apparel retail CEOs haves stopped using China as their primary supplier, up from 30% before the pandemic, according to a new survey by the US Fashion Industry Association and Sheng Lu, an associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.
Almost 80% plan to reduce their sourcing from China over the next two years. Those companies are primarily leaving China for Vietnam, Bangladesh and India, which have relatively large-scale production capacity and stable economic and political situations, according to the report.
“One of the few issues that unites Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress is their focus on the threat from China,” USFIA president Julia Hughes wrote in the report. “Diversification seems like an appropriate way to summarize how the fashion industry is responding to the new level of economic and diplomatic uncertainty.”
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