Top Human Hair Exporters by Country

Top Human Hair Exporters by Country

Raw human hair has significant commercial value. In some countries, criminals have made hair-theft muggings a recurrent problem.Hair manufacturers

Natural human hair is also a coveted commodity in international trade, processed by businesses into hair extensions and wigs.

Globally, international sales of exported human hair (excluding hair extensions and wigs) totaled US$75.1 million in 2018. That dollar amount reflects a -27.8% decline from $104 million in exports during 2014 and a -10.5% drop from 2017 to 2018.

Among continents, Asia sold the highest dollar worth of exported human hair during 2018 with shipments valued at $67.3 million or 89.6% of the global total. In second place were exporters in Europe at 6.7%. Even smaller percentages came from North America (2%), Africa (0.9%), Latin America specifically Brazil and Anguilla (0.02%), with just $2,000 sourced from Australia (0.003%) in Oceania.

For research purposes, the 4-digit Harmonized Tariff System code prefix is 0501 for human hair. The formal prefix code label for 0501 is unworked human hair whether or not washed or scoured and the waste of human hair.Among the top exporters, the fastest-growing human hair exporters since 2014 were: Tanzania (up 5,286%), Japan (up 2,590%), United Kingdom (up 1,119%) and Singapore (up 411.5%).

Four countries posted declines in their exported human hair sales namely: South Africa (down -81.9%), United States (down -47.9%), India (down -47.9%) and Pakistan (down -3.5%).