THE TEXTILE AND APPAREL TRADE BALANCE REPORT

The Textile and Apparel Trade Balance Report shows imports, exports, and calculates the trade balance for U.S. textile and apparel trade with the world and with selected trade partners. The report shows trade for the last two full calendar years, and the current and last year-to-date periods.

The Trade Balance Report covers products of textile mills and apparel assembled from textile mill products. Raw cotton, unspun wool, and man-made fiber products that have not been processed into yarns with twist are not included. Apparel of leather, fur, and plastic are also not included.

Product Coverage in the Trade Balance Report is more extensive than that in the Major Shippers Report. The Major Shippers Report covers only those products assigned a Category under the U.S. textile and apparel import control program. Products covered by the Trade Balance Report that are not counted in the Major Shippers Report include certain products under the following classifications: silk apparel, made-up articles, specialty yarns and twines, carpets and rugs, specialty fabrics, and sports gloves.

Textile and apparel products are selected for the report by SITC revision 3 commodity code. The trade data used in the report are collected by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

The following countries and territories are included in the CBI aggregates:

Antigua and Barbuda

Aruba

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Costa Rica

Dominica

Dominican Republic

El Salvador

Grenada

Guatemala

Guyana

Haiti

Honduras

Jamaica

Montserrat

Netherlands Antilles

Nicaragua

Panama

St. Kitts and

Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Trinidad and Tobago

Virgin Islands, British

The following countries are designated as least-developed beneficiary developing countries (LDDC) pursuant to section 504(c)(6) of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended:

Bangladesh

Benin

Bhutan

Botswana

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Cape Verde

Central African Republic

Chad

Comoros

Djibouti

Equatorial Guinea

Gambia, The

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Haiti

Kiribati

Lesotho

Malawi

Mali

Mozambique

Nepal

Niger

Rwanda

Sao Tome and

Principe

Sierra Leone

Somalia

Tanzania

Togo

Tuvalu

Uganda

Vanuatu

Western Samoa

Yemen Arab Republic (Sanaa)

Haiti is excluded from the LDDC aggregates because it is included with the CBI countries.

Prepared by the Office of Textiles and Apparel, Trade Data Division.