Chinese dragon not in mood to trim down textile exports

26 May '05

2 min read

striking back at brussels, china said it was not making an allowance for further steps to slow down a surge in textile and textile products exports that is frightening the us and the eu.

lou jiwei, vice finance minister stated that china needed to see the reaction in washington and brussels to its announcement last friday of imposing higher taxes on 74 lines of clothing and textile products.

chinese textile exports have flooded eu and us domestic markets with cheap textile products since the end of multi fibre agreement on january 1, alarming the us and eu of market disruption and thousands of job losses.

the united states has already imposed limits on imports of chinese trousers, underwear, shirts and yarn, and eu states on monday held emergency meeting with china on its rapid speed of t-shirts and flax exports.

to ease the situation china has already raised tariffs on 74 categories of textile products.

china has already warned that it would not impose the tariffs to any products that comes under to import quotas. “chinese products that are subject to export restrictions in the future will be removed from the export tariff list,” said chong quan, ministry of commerce spokesman.

kipkorir rana, deputy director general, wto explained that the china has a comparative advantage in textiles and the quotas have now been scrapped, new restrictions would not help the multilateral trading system.

"the us and the eu au are important big members and when they take action others will follow and this could create the notion of bringing back quotas," he concluded.

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