The Central American Textile And Apparel Industry

INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT ANALYSES 12 : CENTRAL AMERICA POST – 2005WITHOUT A MEANINGFUL U.S. – CENTRAL AMERICAN FTAThis study will focus on Central American trade in four products:• Category 338/339: Cotton knit shirts• Category 340/640: Cotton & manmade fiber woven shirts, men & boys• Category 347/348: Cotton trousers and shorts• Category 352: Cotton underwearAs a group, these products account for $4.6 billion in trade – over half of theregion’s total. The Central American situation with respect to each of these marketsvaries from product to product.Category 338/339: Cotton Knit ShirtsCentral American and Caribbean suppliers have long dominated U.S. imports ofcotton knit shirts. U.S. imports of Category 338/339 from the five Central Americancountries totaled 98.7 million dozen during the year-ending June 2003. This equates toone-third of Category 338/339 imports from all sources. Three Central Americansuppliers, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, are among the top four suppliers to theU.S. market. Six of the top ten suppliers to the U.S. market are located in the WesternHemisphere.At the same time, imports from other suppliers are tightly controlled by quotas.The table below sets out import levels for the top five 13 quota suppliers and CentralAmerican countries, as well as average quota fill rates for the past three years.12 This analysis uses the Category system under which different textile and apparel product lines aregrouped together for quota purposes.13 Vietnam was not subject to quota until May 2003. Trade for Vietnam is not included in “Top 5 QuotaSuppliers” in the graph below.11