Gulf Knitwear Supplier: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait

Knitwear for the Gulf inverts the assumption most sourcing guidance is built on. A coastal Gulf winter runs roughly 10-20C, which is a genuine knitwear season - but a fine-gauge one. The 3GG to 7GG construction that carries a Northern European range is simply too warm to sell through here, and the shelf that matters sits at 12GG and finer, in cotton rather than heavy wool. We publish 273 styles at 12GG, 90 described as fine gauge and 249 in cotton, including 17 in mercerized cotton where the lustre reads as premium without adding weight. Layering pieces do the work that a heavy crew does further north: 41 published knit polos, 15 short-sleeve styles and 9 knit vests. The calendar is the second inversion, and it is the one that catches buyers new to the region. Gulf retail peaks against the Islamic calendar, which runs about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year - so the peak moves earlier every year instead of sitting in a fixed month. For 2027, Ramadan is expected to begin around 8 February and Eid al-Fitr to fall on 9 or 10 March, both subject to moon sighting. Working backwards from stock on shelf before Ramadan opens: sea freight to Jebel Ali or Hamad Port runs 25-35 days, bulk production 30-45 days, and sampling 15-25 days from a confirmed tech pack. A buyer who wants an Eid 2027 delivery is therefore working to a tech pack in early October 2026, not in the new year. Customs and conformity. All six GCC states apply the Common External Tariff, and clothing under HS 6110 attracts the standard 5% rate on CIF value - one number across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, which is simpler than the fibre-by-fibre TARIC split an EU importer works to. Conformity is where the two largest markets diverge. Saudi Arabia requires registration on the SABER platform with a Product Conformity Certificate plus a per-shipment Shipping Conformity Certificate against SASO's Technical Regulation for Textile Products; textiles have sat inside SABER since December 2019, and an unregistered shipment is stopped at the border rather than penalised afterwards. The UAE runs conformity through MOIAT, which absorbed ESMA, under the Emirates Conformity Assessment Scheme, with textile products governed by Cabinet Resolution No. 54 of 2019. We produce woven main labels, care labels and hangtags to your artwork carrying the fibre composition, care and country-of-origin content in Arabic and English, so the label is not a second project after the garment is approved.