Looking for lingerie? Chinese production lines pick up slack as garment, textile orders shift from India

The European Union wants underwear. And China has got it covered.

Upended by the coronavirus pandemic, the global textile and garment supply chain is shifting its focus back to China ahead of the busy year-end period as overseas customers have turned away from India, which is still battling an out-of-control pandemic.

In Zhaoqing city, in China’s manufacturing hub of Guangdong province, an executive at an underwear factory that supplies a high-profile overseas brand said they had no export orders in April or May, resulting in workers being laid off. But in August and last month, as the pandemic continued to spread in Southeast Asia, foreign orders returned.

“We will have an order for 800,000 sets of underwear next month for the EU market,” the executive said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to talk to the media. “We will be very busy next month, and now we are recruiting some workers to fill the order. The brand had not placed orders [with us] for a while.”

According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, India has recorded more than 7.3 million coronavirus infections – second most behind the United States – and 112,000 deaths, which is the third most behind the US and Brazil.

As a backbone of the Indian economy, the textile and apparel industry is its largest source of foreign exchange earnings, accounting for about 15 per cent of its export earnings and 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.