An examination of mill and final consumption in 17 major textile porducing and trading countries--Brazil, China (including Taiwan), France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States--reveals that the self sufficiency levels of developed countries have declined at similar raters despite different industrial strategies. The self sufficiency leval of several major Western countries is approximately 50 percen. the cyclical or structural downtruns of Western markets may seriously impact developing countries, whose textile and apparel exports are an essential way of generating income to use for other goods and services. Although consumption per head is expanding in the developed countries, the markets amy anot assimilate import growth at rates similar to those of the 1980s. Data reflecting growth in developing countries must be viewed in light of downward revisions in population data.