China-US textile talks make progress
By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-19 06:00

He explained that now is the time for US importers to place orders for the winter. Chinese suppliers ink major deals with US firms at the autumn Chinese Export Commodities Fair in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, on orders for the first half of next year.

US and Chinese textile dealers suffered losses this spring when they lost a number of deals after the US Government announced safeguard measures just before the April fair.

An early resolution to the dispute will also help the two countries manage the implementation of the agreement, Cao added.

"We hope the categories included in the agreement are reasonable; that (low) growth in the first several months this year is taken into account and agreement on a satisfactory growth rate is reached," he added.

The United States started imposing curbs on Chinese textile products that limit growth to 7.5 per cent annually after the abolition of the decade-long global quota regime on textile trade at the beginning of this year.

About 20 categories of Chinese textile products are under US safeguard curbs or investigations.

US textile producers want to retain the restrictions and add more categories to the list while importers and retailers want the curbs to be lifted and the annual growth ceiling set at around 20 per cent.