NCTO
Cites Huge Chinese Price Gap from Currency
Manipulation
- Chinese Apparel
Prices 30 Percent Now Below Rest of the World -
-
NCTO Calls on U.S.
Government to Aggressively Attack Manipulation &
Save U.S.
Jobs -
(Washington
DC)
– The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO)
released figures today showing that prices for Chinese
apparel goods recently released from quota control are
30 percent lower than the same apparel goods made by
dozens of other countries. These countries
include Mexico
and the nations of the Caribbean,
which are the major export markets for
U.S.
yarns and fabrics.
This
30 percent price gap has enabled
China
to amass a 60 percent import market share in those
products in just the last two years and to increase its
exports by more than 700 percent. During the
same period of time, the import market share held by
China’s
competitors declined sharply, from 91% to 40%. And according to
year-to-date figures for 2004,
China’s
share is continuing to climb.
Cass
Johnson,
President of NCTO, said:
“China’s
artificially low prices are the result of an array of
illegal and unfair trade practices which our government
continues to be reluctant to attack. The worst of
these practices is
China’s
manipulation of its currency.
China’s
currency manipulation so distorts the free market that
literally no other country can compete today with
China’s
exports.
Until our government becomes as aggressive on
behalf of our workers as
China
is on behalf of its workers, no manufacturing job in
this country is safe.”
Johnson
also said, “Last year, the
U.S.
textile industry lost 50,000 jobs while exports from
China,
propped up by
China’s
undervalued currency, flooded the
U.S.
market. As
a result, the trade deficit in textiles and apparel with
China
reached almost $14 billion, accounting for 12 percent of
the total U.S.-China trade deficit.
”
NCTO
was among the many manufacturing groups that were
stunned at the
U.S.
government’s pre-emptive denial last week of a Section
301 case being prepared against Chinese currency
manipulation by the Fair Currency Alliance. Johnson
commented, “Labeling U.S. manufacturers as ‘economic
isolationists’ because they have sought to use U.S.
trade law to attack a practice that the President
himself has said hurts U.S. workers calls into question
the Administration’s commitment to attacking this
serious problem.
NCTO, along with other members of the
Alliance,
will carefully monitor Administration efforts over the
next several months, before making a decision whether or
not to file the petition.”
|
Imports
of Apparel Products*
(2001-2003) |
|
|
China |
Rest of
World |
|
|
Average price per square
meter |
$2.65 |
$3.44 |
China’s
currency-driven price gap =
30% |
|
Change imports in square
meters |
1.03
billion |
-323 million
|
China
import market share:
60% |
|
Change in imports in
dollars |
+ $2.5
billion |
- $1.4
billion |
|
*29
apparel categories removed from quota control on
January
1, 2002.
