Textile Industry
A Large Market for Fashionable Goods
Industry Overview
A long history of manufacturing, innovation and flexibility has made the textile industry in Germany one of the most important sectors in the country. Today, textiles are the second largest consumer goods market after the food and beverage industry, employing around 400,000 workers worldwide. The domestic textile market is made up of 1,200 mostly small and medium sized enterprises with a workforce of 120,000 in the different industry segments.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the manufacturing of technical textiles constitutes over 50 percent of the total domestic textile production. With this output, Germany is one of the largest textile exporters worldwide, registering an export quota of 43 percent in 2010. At the same time, the country is also the second largest textile importer after the United States and has become an attractive market for many textile exporting countries since the 1980s.
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