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Contact:
Cass Johnson
(202)
756-1422
For Immediate Release
Missy
Branson (202)
756-1440
March 7,
2005
Massive
Surge from
China
in January
Exports
of Apparel Up 546% - Chinese Prices Fall By As
Much as 45%
U.S.
Government Action Critical to Avoid Enormous Job
Losses
According
to Chinese Customs data, exports of major apparel
products from China into the U.S. market increased
by an average of 546 percent in January 2005 over
January 2004, as China was released from quota
control as a result of joining the World Trade
Organization.
The
largest increases were in cotton knit shirts and
trousers, which were up 1,836 percent and 1,332
percent. China
shipped nearly 27 million cotton trousers last
month, up from 1.9 million in January 2004, when
China
was still under quota control. China
also shipped 18 million cotton knit shirts in
January, compared to 941 thousand knit shirts in
Jan. 2004.
In the two categories,
China
shipped more than one year’s trade in one month’s
time.
(See table next
page.)
China’s
surge comes in eight product groups that represent
the major employment and production sectors of the
U.S.
yarn and fabric industry. The
U.S.
industry has asked the
U.S.
government to initiate safeguard actions against
China
in these categories in order to prevent large job
losses.
Threat-based safeguard petitions filed by
the industry last year have been stalled by a
legal challenge.
NCTO
renewed its call for the
U.S.
to move quickly to self-initiate safeguard
actions. Cass
Johnson, president of NCTO,
said:
“The
U.S.
government is now the only entity that can act
quickly enough to prevent a wave of plant closings
and job losses in the
U.S.
textile and apparel sector. A long
drawn out safeguard petition process will only
ensure that thousands of
U.S.
textile workers will lose
their jobs to
China
’s unfair and predatory
trading practices.”
The
surge is fueled by
China’s
ability to manipulate and control its pricing
structure in textile and apparel products. According
to Chinese export figures, January 2005 prices for
cotton knit shirts from
China
were down 45 percent and cotton trousers were down
28 percent. The
average price decline in January for all the
safeguard categories was 25 percent.
According
to United Nations trade data,
China
has taken over textile and apparel markets in
virtually every instance where quota restraints
were allowed to lapse.
This
data is the first official data from any source on
China’s
2005 trade.
The data released by
China
is not expected to be reflected in
U.S.
import statistics until February data is posted
because the Chinese data reflects goods shipped
from China
while U.S.
import data reflects goods entering
U.S.
ports. U.S.
data for January imports from
China
is due on Friday, March 11.
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