Hong Kong’s apparel and clothing accessories exports slipped in June even as the territory’s overall merchandise trade posted its strongest monthly performance in more than four decades, underscoring a widening divergence between the city’s traditional textile trade and its booming electronics and artificial-intelligence-driven export engine.
Data released by the Census and Statistics Department showed exports of articles of apparel and clothing accessories fell 1.4% year-on-year to HK$3,636 million in June 2026. Hong Kong’s overall external merchandise trade experienced a robust expansion in June 2026, with total exports surging by 53.4% year-on-year to HK$641.1 billion, a pace far above economists’ projections for 43.8% growth and the highest since March 1984, when a 61.6% increase was recorded. Read Here
Despite the June softness, apparel’s first-half trajectory held firm. Cumulative exports of clothing and accessories for January through June reached HK$22,637 million, a 6.4% increase from HK$21,280 million in the same period of 2025, signalling that demand for Hong Kong-sourced apparel and re-exported garments has not deteriorated meaningfully even as headline trade figures are increasingly dominated by other sectors.
The broader export surge was propelled overwhelmingly by technology hardware rather than textiles or garments. Exports of electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts jumped HK$121.8 billion, or 57.2%, in June, while office machines and automatic data processing equipment rose HK$45.9 billion, or 93.2%. Those gains dwarfed the apparel category by scale, illustrating how thoroughly Hong Kong’s trade profile has tilted toward AI-linked electronics.
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Regionally, total exports to Asia climbed 54.4% in June, led by an 83% jump in shipments to Singapore, while exports to the United States more than doubled. Imports also grew sharply, up 45.4% year-on-year, again beating a projected 43.5% gain and marking a new high not seen since a 51.5% surge in February 1992. The trade gap widened accordingly: a visible trade deficit of HK$52 billion, equal to 7.5% of the value of imports, was recorded for the month, while the apparel sector’s own six-month ledger, drawn from Census and Statistics Department figures, showed a persistent structural deficit tied to falling re-export volumes.
Longer-run figures compiled by trade publication TCF Post show Hong Kong’s clothing re-export base has been contracting for several years, with total clothing exports falling from HK$51,167 million in 2023 to HK$42,971 million in 2025, a 13% drop, as re-exports of mainland Chinese origin garments declined and the US share of the city’s clothing export market roughly halved amid tariff and sourcing shifts. The apparel sector’s exposure to the American market fell from 22.2% of exports in 2023 to just 13.5% in 2025, even as Hong Kong’s role as an entrepot for Southeast Asian and mainland manufacturers evolved toward higher-value electronics and components.
Officials cautioned that Hong Kong’s headline trade momentum may not persist at June’s pace. A government spokesman said continued robust global demand for AI-related electronic products should support merchandise trade performance, though the recent re-escalation of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East warrants attention. Bruce Pang Ming, director of research at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said export growth could moderate in coming months as the technology upcycle steadies, the global economy eases and last year’s high base effect weighs on comparisons, though the council maintained a 20% full-year growth forecast.
For the apparel and textile trade specifically, the data suggest a sector holding steady on cumulative volume while losing relative visibility within Hong Kong’s export mix, as electronics and AI hardware increasingly define the territory’s trade narrative through the remainder of 2026.