Textile firms look beyond US imports curbs

20 Jul '05

4 min read

Jin's company exports up to 400,000 pieces of cotton and silk garments every year, including approximately 50,000 pieces to the United States. Among its importers are leading US retailers including Wal-Mart.

Meida Garments Co., a leading textile exporter in east China's Shandong Province, has gradually replaced traditional cotton clothing with flax products ever since it got wind of potential US safeguard measures last year.

In the meantime, some textile dealers have called on domestic players to seek long-term development of the whole industry instead of short-term benefits of individual business alone.

"Many textile plants prefer US orders since they are often big orders and are easy to process," said Guo Haiping, a business representative for the European and American markets with Zhejiang Zhongda Shareholding Group Co. "But Chinese textile companies need to set up a self-disciplinary mechanism amongst themselves in order to better regulate product quantity, quality and prices and create a favorable domestic and international environment for long-term development."

China Chamber for Import and Export of Textiles issued an alert to domestic textile firms Monday warning them to suspend export of six lines of textile products to the United States.

The chamber said on its website that the United States stopped importing Chinese-made cotton-knitted shirts and cotton and man-made fiber underwear on July 5, and halted imports of cotton trousers on July 8. It also predicted the United States will soon shut the door to Chinese man-made fiber shirts, too, because it had imported 97.89 percent of the total limited volume set for China by July 13.

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