Bangladesh shipped over $2 billion of textile and apparel to the U.S. in the period Jan.-Oct. 2005; Cambodia shipped $1.4 billion. "Under this arrangement, our CBTPA and CAFTA partners will find their duty-free status is much less of a benefit when they have to compete with Bangladesh and Cambodia who will also have duty-free status.
Furthermore, this duty-free access is likely to be based on a very weak rule of origin that will allow Bangladesh and Cambodia to use Chinese fabric," said Spilhaus.
However, the LDC provision may give the U.S. some valuable flexibility. Three percent of products, by tariff line, may be excluded from the duty-free treatment.
Exactly how that exclusion will be administered is unclear, but it appears that we may be able to exclude most of the most sensitive textile and apparel products, including those covered by the U.S.-China bilateral agreement that goes into effect on January 1st.
NTA's final goal for the WTO ministerial conference was harmonization of others countries' textile and apparel tariffs at the relatively low level of current U.S. tariffs.
The ministers opted instead for tariff reductions under a "Swiss Formula" with potentially different coefficients for developed and developing countries.
The National Textile Association is made up of companies that weave, knit, or finish fabrics in the U.S. and the fiber, yarn, and other suppliers to the U.S. textile industry.
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSllC Ltd)")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF)")
