The ASEAN bloc consists of member countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The country imported apparel worth $1,036.424 million against its total apparel imports of $8.232 billion in the year 2022. The inbound shipments from ASEAN were valued at $868.154 million out of total imports of $7.386 billion in 2021. Trade with ASEAN was $682.522 million (total $6.363 billion) in 2020 and $734.100 million (total $6.600 billion) in 2019, according to Fibre2Fashion's market insight tool TexPro.

Australia is also one of the major cotton-producing and exporting countries in the world. It exported 712.873 million kg of cotton fibre (HS code 5201) in January-November 2023, valued at $1,545.379 million. During this period, Australia’s cotton exports totalled $2.668 billion (1,228.228 million kg). This indicates that the country exported 57.90 per cent of its cotton to ASEAN in terms of value, as per TexPro.

Cotton exports to ASEAN were $1,861.262 million (703.910 million kg) in 2022 against a total of $2.953 billion (1,113.373 million kg). During 2021, the trade was $991.251 million (492.989 million kg) out of the total $1.408 billion (705.731 million kg). Australia's cotton exports to ASEAN were valued at $106.283 million (58.200 million kg) in 2020 and $196.918 million (100.733 million kg) in 2019. Its total cotton exports were $314.116 million (172.443 million kg) in 2020 and $1,090.777 million (543.323 million kg) in 2019.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)