Textile & apparel industry urged to take benefit from cap on Chinese imports

13 Oct '05

2 min read

Situation faced by China on the US textile front seems to bring opportunities for its neighbours, specially Taiwan, to step up its exports to the US market.

Premier Frank Hsieh has urged Taiwan's textile manufacturers and exporters to grab the opportunity, even as he has instructed relevant government agencies to spur textile and garment exports to the United States.

Taiwanese textile and apparel exports in the recent years have reached US $12.5 billion annually, while its imports from the US have crawling at US $2.6 billion. That clearly gives Taiwan a trade surplus of about US $9.9 billion annually in this sector, reports Ministry of Economic Affairs.

With quotas restrictions imposed on 26 categories of clothing and textile imports from China, including wool suits, coats, cheesecloth and polyester filament fabric, Taiwanese manufacturers have begun receiving steady flow of orders from the US.

Textile operators from the Tainan area in southern Taiwan are working overtime to meet the orders, Hsieh informed.

Hsieh said instructions have been issued to MOEA and the Council of Labor extend all support to Taiwan's textile industry so that they pick as many textile and garment orders released from China as possible.

In another move to promote the sector, textile and garment makers have been invited to set up operations in the Chang Ping Industrial Park in central Taiwan offers government sops.

This has evinced keen interest from the Taiwan Sweater Industry Association in bringing foreign investment in Taiwan, he noted.

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