China's growth in textile and clothing exports will slow following a surge early this year that triggered calls for safeguard measures against Chinese producers, a commerce ministry official said Monday. Vice Minister of Commerce Zhang Zhigang said Chinese textile makers would focus on adding value to their output rather than boosting trade volume. "We are not trying to aim at increasing the quantity of textile products," Zhang said at a global textile economic forum in Beijing.
Following the end of quotas regulating the global trade on January 1, China's January-February clothing exports rose 28.1 percent year-on-year to 9.34 billion dollars. Textile exports alone were up 34.6 percent to 5.26 billion dollars in the same period. The increase triggered calls for the imposition of safeguard measures by textile and apparel producers in the United States and Europe. Zhang insisted the jump in exports was only temporary and repeated Chinese warnings against a rise in protectionism among importing nations. "This is a short-term phenomenon. It will not be like this for a long time," he said.
Zhang added that "initial progress has been made" in capping Chinese textile and clothing exports by introducing duties on garments and proposing a minimum pricing system for manufacturers.
China Council for the Promotion of International Trade chairman Gao Yan said at the forum that 415 textile and clothing makers, accounting for half of Chinese exports to the United States and Europe, had agreed to the pricing scheme.
Gao also predicted the growth in Chinese textile exports would fall over the next three years.
China, the world's largest exporter of clothing with 28 percent of the market, is expected to be the main winner from the end of textile quotas because it can undercut producers with higher costs in Europe and the United States.
The end of quotas enshrined in the 1974 Multifibre Arrangement and later in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing took effect on January 1.
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