The end of cheap clothes is near

Food prices have shot up in response to a surge in crop prices. Now consumers should get ready for clothes prices to follow suit.

Garment makers are seeing demand shrink as consumers in the US and Europe are cutting back on spending.

US cotton consumption is set to fall 6.5% from last year to less than a million tonnes whilst EU consumption is expected to fall 11% to about 460,000 tonnes, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicts.

At the same time, they are hit by more expensive raw materials and by soaring oil prices, which make their factories more expensive to operate and which pushes up the cost of shipping to foreign markets.

In India, the weaving industry is in crisis. In China, the textile sector is squeezed.

And, yet again, the root cause of their problems can be found in America.

BBC