A quarter of Chinese production capacity used by global sportswear brands is lying idle. International brands are shifting sourcing overseas, which results in unoccupied production capacity. The protracted trade war with the US is pushing the biggest sports labels out of the Asian nation’s factories.

The idle capacity in a country that’s long been the workshop to the world underscores the blow of the trade war to Chinese manufacturers, who are also grappling with an economy that’s expanding at its slowest pace in three decades. There are growing signs that the global supply chain that’s been in place for decades -- and powered by China’s economic rise -- is being permanently transformed. The world’s largest supplier of consumer goods, Li & Fung, is helping its clients, which include the biggest retailers in the world, move sourcing away from China to other regions. For instance, it assisted one American retailer reduce its reliance on China from 70 per cent to 20 per cent within two years.

However, for China’s industry of sportswear exports, the growing local market can partially make up for waning foreign demand. By shifting to made-in-China and sold-in-China, factories can shorten production cycles and that could be good for them.