Additional Textile Petitions Filed

    September 16, 2005 -- Citing continuing Chinese government inflexibility on bilateral consultations and an ongoing flood of Chinese textile and apparel imports, U.S. textile industry and labor union officials announced that they had, on Thursday, filed to reapply nine current safeguards covering sixteen product categories through the end of 2006. All nine safeguards are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
    Over the last seven months, China has mounted the biggest export surge in history. U.S. imports from China in the apparel safeguard categories grew by 850 million garments, an average increase of 627 percent. According to United Nations trade databases, Chinese prices for these and other major apparel items are on average 58 percent below the prices other countries charge.
    The textile industry is re-filing these petitions now to give the U.S. Government the opportunity to renew the current safeguards seamlessly in January 2006 if no comprehensive textile agreement is reached.
Staff contact: Peter Orwick, ext. 33

<< Back