The Impact of Financial Crisis on Textile Trade Pattern between China and ASEAN

Abstract

China and ASEAN have been maintaining a relationship both cooperative and competitive in the textile trade. Due to its labor intensive feature and high dependence on foreign trade , the textile trade has received much attention after the 2008 financial crisis. The customs data (classified by the HS code) from year 2006-2009 is employed to research the impact of the crisis on the trade pattern of textile industry as a whole and each of the 4 subfields (raw materials, textiles, clothing and textile machinery). G-L index and the export-import unit value ratio are analyzed with Brown-Mood median test, and the results show that the China-ASEAN trade pattern has not changed fundamentally. However, the trade-pattern indicators of the textile industry and the subfields, except for the machinery subfield, have been experiencing some quantitative variation in the crisis. JEL Classification: F14