textile politics

[Autoplectic <autoplectic@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1557501,00.html>


China holds out for rise in textile quotas as talks drag on

Heather Long
Saturday August 27, 2005
Guardian

Two days of intense talks between Beijing and Brussels concluded
yesterday with no end in sight to the trade dispute preventing cheap
Chinese clothes from entering the European Union.

China stepped up its pressure on the EU last night, expressing its
concern that the talks had failed to find a way of increasing the
quotas placed on its textile exports in June.

On one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year, retailers in
Britain were also pressing for an early resolution to the dispute,
which has left shiploads of low-cost Chinese knitwear, trousers, bras
and blouses languishing at customs posts across the EU.

Reports from Chinese state-run newspapers suggested that China had
rejected the EU's proposal to borrow some quota capacity from 2006 and
2007 to ease the log jam. Encouraged by the opposition to the EU's
quotas in northern European countries, the Chinese are holding out for
an increase in the quotas.

Cao Xinyu, a spokesman for the China National & Textile Apparel
Council, said transferring the quotas from other years was not a
feasible solution. "We hope they can raise the quota," he said. "The
main question is how much the increase in the quota would be if both
sides agree to increase it."

The six-strong EU team, led by Fritz-Harald Wenig, the European trade
defence director, was expected to leave Beijing today. An EU spokesman
described the talks as "constructive and friendly" but declined to
elaborate on any details of the negotiations.

"Both sides can see their interest in solving this problem as quickly
as possible," said the EU's spokeswoman in Brussels, Amelia Torres.

According to the rules under which China joined the World Trade
Organisation in 2001, member states are allowed to impose quotas on
Chinese textiles until 2008. The EU singled out 10 categories of
clothing that it wanted protected and the quotas have already been
exceeded in seven of them. Dresses became the latest yesterday.

The United States will begin its negotiations with China next week in
an effort to resolve its own textile quota crisis. President Bush
blocked billions of dollars worth of cheap Chinese clothes under
"safeguard" provisions. US industry officials said a deal was unlikely
to be finalised by next week.

"I would say there's an enormous amount of work left [to bridge
differences]," said Lloyd Wood, a spokesman for the American
Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition. "Our position is that no deal is
better than a bad deal," he said.