China’s imports of hemp bast fiber had been lower in half in 2025 after a steep rise over the previous couple of years, signaling some volatility on this planet’s most essential marketplace for hemp textile uncooked supplies.
In response to Chinese language customs figures, the nation imported 44,370 metric tons of hemp fiber in 2025, down from 92,744 tons in 2024, a decline of 52.16%.
“The sharp decline within the import amount of hemp is said to the numerous enhance within the planting space of hemp in Northeast China in 2024,” which boosted home raw-material availability for 2025, in line with SunSirs, a Chinese language analyst that tracks commodities.
Demand shift
The drop issues as a result of China is the market-moving purchaser of hemp bast fiber utilized in spinning, blended yarns and textile conversion. Publicly cited commerce figures point out imports rose from simply 837 tons in 2020 to tens of 1000’s of tons by 2023-2025 – as Chinese language mills leaned extra closely on imported provide to enrich home manufacturing.
The sharp reversal now factors to a market that may change rapidly relying on home acreage, competing fibers and downstream textile demand, the analyst stated.
France leads
SunSirs additionally cited a powerful 2024 flax harvest in Europe, which could possibly be a consider China’s hemp fiber import dip final yr, as a result of flax and hemp compete in some overlapping natural-fiber channels. Mills can swap purchases based mostly on value, high quality and availability, the analyst noticed.
Regardless of the downturn, the figures counsel France has strengthened its place as the principle European gateway into China’s hemp-fiber market, with French producers supplying 74.29% of China’s imports in 2025, up from 63.66% in 2024. Belgium, the following largest single importer to China, fell to three.26% from 19.73% a yr earlier. Different foremost suppliers over the previous two years had been Russia, Netherlands and Ukraine.
Way back to 2020, China agreed to buy an unspecified quantity of hemp fiber from the USA as a part of a complete $12.5 billion agriculture commerce deal, however there may be little to point any important commerce befell as U.S. producers had been merely not set as much as produce any important quantity of fiber.
Export facet
At the same time as fiber imports fell final yr, China stays the world’s greatest exporter of higher-value hemp items, with greater than 3,500 tons of hemp yarn merchandise and over 16 million meters of hemp materials shipped overseas final. Fibers, yarns, materials and completed items totaled $2.018 billion in 2025, down 15.23% from 2024, SunSirs stated.
Exports reached practically 200 nations, with main markets throughout Asia and in Italy, Spain, Turkey and the USA.
Exports to the USA rose 1.75% yr over yr, although no bilateral greenback worth was reported. “Within the face of such a changeable U.S. tariff coverage, the expansion of exports to the USA nonetheless displays the inflexible demand for hemp textile merchandise within the U.S. market to some extent,” SunSirs stated.
Amongst hemp textile shipments to the U.S., materials accounted for 33.19% and completed merchandise 66.81%.
