Fibers Used in Textile Manufactures Entering United States Foreign Trade: Quantities of Three Major Fibers Used

Excerpts from the report Introduction: During the past 41 years the pattern of United States foreign trade in manufactures of basic textile fibers--cotton, wool, and manmade--has changed considerably. The total volume of trade in these manufactures more than doubled in the 1920-60 period. Exports of manufactures of cotton and wool declined; exports of manufactures of manmade fibers increased. Imports for manufactures of all three major fibers began to increase sharply shortly after the end of World War II. During the 41 years from 1920 through 1960, the fiber equivalent of textile exports was larger than the fiber equivalent of textile imports for every year except 1960, when imports exceeded exports by 58 million pounds. This import excess was chiefly the result of the phenomenal increases in imports of manufactured textile products. These and other accurate overall measurements of this country's foreign trade in textile manufactures, which are presented in this publication, have been nonexistent until recently. It was necessary first to develop a way of converting official foreign trade statistics into a common measure. To develop this common measure--pounds of fiber--it was necessary in turn to determine conversion factors for numerous products that are reported in official foreign trade statistics in such diverse quantity units as pounds, square yards, dozens, and value only. The technique for deriving conversion factors was developed after several years of research and is explained in detail in this report.