Death knell for ITCB?

20 Aug '10

4 min read

As a matter of fact, the collective efforts bore early fruits, i.e., the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, and the implementation of which led to the demise of the discriminatory restrictions against developing exporting countries, including those in particular against clothing exports from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. under the so-called MFA (Multi-Fibre Arrangement) in early 2005.

ITCB member countries once included Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Jamaica, Macau, China, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay and Vietnam with Cuba, Mauritius and Singapore as observers.

Currently, what with issues such as high tariffs, origin rules harmonization, antidumping duties, FTAs, eco norms and labels etc., plaguing the textile industry, absence of ITCB will definitely be felt as it would have a telling effect on the producer countries which will be left to fend for themselves.

But it is said that most members of the ITCB believed that the organization has fulfilled its primary mission of getting rid of discriminatory system of quantitative restrictions. And now members preferred to abandon the sectorial approach of handling trade issues. If the need rise for future cooperation and coordination on textiles and clothing issue, developing countries may still engage in a relatively loose-format like G20.

Fibre2fashion.com tried contacting Mr Munir Ahmad, the former Executive Director ITCB for more than decade, but was unreachable. Also calls to the Geneva Office went unanswered.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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