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US-China textile talks fail: Washington
10/14/2005
BEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters): China and the United States have failed to find a formula to deal with China's booming textile exports, which have inflamed trade tensions between the two countries, the chief US negotiator said today.
"We have not come to an agreement that meets the needs of our domestic manufacturers and retailers," David Spooner, the special textile negotiator in the US Trade Representative's Office, said in a statement.
It was the fourth round of face-to-face meetings since a surge in Chinese exports unleashed by the end of global textile quotas on Jan 1 spread alarm in the United States.
China, with modern factories and cheap labour, has seen sales of clothes to the United States jump 75 per cent in the first seven months to nearly $10.5 billion.
The two sides are aiming for a deal similar to a pact China and the European Union reached in June, and revised in September, that limits annual growth in 10 categories of Chinese textile exports to the 25-nation EU to between 8 and 12.5 per cent a year in the period 2005-2007.
If China had not negotiated the caps, the EU would have been permitted under the terms of China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001 to impose unilateral growth limits of 7.5 per cent a year until the end of 2008.
The United States has already invoked these "safeguard" provisions to curb imports of Chinese shirts, trousers, bras, underwear, yarn and other textile and clothing products.
Spooner said Washington reserved the right to resort to further restrictions to give its textile industry time to adjust.
But a Chinese government researcher said in remarks published Thursday said Washington was at fault for having turned textiles into a political issue.
The two sides narrowed their differences in Washington last month and US industry officials had been confident before this week's talks that a deal could finally be struck.
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