ong Kong and Macau, p. 27). Exports of textiles manufactured in Hong Kong have, however, been steadily declining as a percentage of total exports during the past decade. (Waller, 1994, p. 66).
Prior to the 1960s, the leading world exporters of textiles and apparel were Hong Kong, Japan and India. In the late 1960's, the Japanese textile industry began to lose market share to the big four East Asian textile exporters, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and China. Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, together with Singapore which no longer ranks among the top ten textile exporters, are commonly referred to as the "tiger" or "newly industrialized economies" (NIE's). By 1976, the combined textile exports of the big four exceeded Japan's. As Sender says, "textiles have become a sunset industry in Japan for years" (1994, p. 61). India, too, has seen its share of world markets in textiles as well as other products shrink, from an estimated two and one half percent of world exports before independence to less than one half of one percent in 1994.
Asia's developing nations, including the big four, accounted for 11 percent of total world exports in 1980, up from four percent in 1975, but they accounted for more than forty percent in 1994 of world exports of textiles and apparel (Cline, 1990, p. 9 and Waller, 1994, p. 66). Textile exports were the number one export of a number of other East Asian countries in 1994: Pakistan 80 percent), Bangladesh (79 percent), Sri Lanka (41 percent), India (35 percent), Thailand (19 percent) and Indonesia (14 percent). (Waller, 1994, p. 64).
Because of the recent explosive growth in textile exports from China, a dramatic shift in the respective world market shares among the big four has occurred during the past decade. In 1983, the leading textile and apparel exporters to the United States, the largest single market, were: Hong Kong 23.2 percent; Taiwan 18.5%; South Korea 17.1% and China eight and ...