Tariff cuts as part of FTA with ASEAN to bolster textile growth

22 Aug '08

2 min read

The textile industry of China is known to have the best international competitiveness. Textile exports from the country to ASEAN is speeding up, partly offsetting the economic loss incurred due to the sharp drop of textile exports to Europe and the United States.

In addition to this, because of the introduction of lowering tariff program of China-ASEAN free trade zone, textile tariff between the two regions will be significantly reduced paving the way for new development opportunities for Chinese textile industry.

For instance, the average tax rate for Thai textile products is 21.5 percent, however, with tariff reduction that took effect from January 1, 2007, tariff was cut to 10.6 percent which will further drop to 4.7 percent from January 2009 and to zero in 2010.

Average tax rate of Malaysian textiles was 16.8 percent which fell to 9.2 percent in 2007, to 3.9 percent in 2009 and will be completely eliminated in 2010. Similarly, in Indonesia, textile rates were mostly under 5 percent and will not be cut any lower than this until 2009 when tariffs will come down to zero.

For Vietnam as well, tariffs on textiles got reduced to 27.2 percent in 2006, to 26.6 percent in 2007, 22.8 percent in 2008, will be lowered to 19 percent in 2009, 12.6 in 2011, 5.8 percent in 2013 and will finally be abolished in 2015.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - China

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