Industry council welcomes textile talks (Xinhua) Updated: 2005-08-26 21:22
Sun Huaibin, spokesman for the China Textile Industry Council, on Friday
expressed welcome to the ongoing China-EU talks on Chinese textile products
blocked at the customs in EU countries.
The current Sino-EU trade consultation in Beijing is an urgent contact
between the two sides to solve internal market crises in the European Union, Sun
told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
Currently, millions of dollars-worth of clothing items shipped from China to
Europe in excess of their quotas have been blocked at customs of some European
countries.
China and EU reached an agreement this June, setting new quotas on ten
categories of textile products from China. But the quotas have been filled
rapidly as many EU importers and retailers had ordered large quantity of goods
from China several months before the new quotas were set.
The EU is under fierce pressure from fashion importers and European retailers
to review quotas.
On Wednesday an EU trade team headed by Fritz-Harald Wenig arrived in Beijing
to try to resolve the problem of Chinese textile exports blocked at the customs
in EU countries.
Both Lu Jianhua, director of the Foreign Trade Department of China's Ministry
of Commerce, and Fritz-Harald Wenig, had "earnest negotiations" over the issue,
the ministry said in a statement late Thursday.
"This shows under conditions of free trade, it is unreasonable to adjust
international trade though quota limit, a kind of factitious method of
planning," Sun said.
"The negotiation itself indicates that trade quota is a double-edge sword,
which can not only refrain export, but do harm to importers as well," he said.
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