Washington, DC – On Friday, April 1, the U.S. Department of Commerce posted its first release of preliminary textile and apparel import data under the Department’s new expedited monitoring system announced on March 21.  As expected, the preliminary data validates the industry’s claim that China is an enormous threat to the U.S. market and must be constrained.

The release of preliminary data clearly demonstrates that the U.S. market is being disrupted as a result of imports from China.  Some particularly sensitive product categories such as cotton trousers and knit shirts saw increases of as much as 1,566 percent and 1,487 percent respectively in the first quarter of 2005 compared to 2004.  In light of these enormous increases, NCTO calls upon the government to immediately self-initiate safeguard actions against China.  Absent such action, China will daily grow its share of the U.S. market in textiles and apparel and thousands of U.S. jobs will be put into jeopardy.

Chinese Customs figures released earlier this week also show that China’s prices are now down 31 percent in major products since the beginning of the year with some product categories, like underwear, seeing price drops of almost 50 percent.[1]

In response to the release of the preliminary data, Cass Johnson, president of NCTO, said: “The data clearly demonstrates that market disruption in ongoing as a result of imports from China.  NCTO is prepared to work with our coalition partners to begin filing actual market disruption cases as soon as possible if the government does not move quickly to self-initiate.  Over a half a million U.S. jobs are at stake and our workers desperately need for their own government to take action on their behalf and prevent these jobs from being sent to China.”

Man-Made Fiber = MMF

CATEGORY	QUANTITY (Million Square Meters)
	Jan/Feb/Mar 2004	Jan/Feb/Mar 2005	Percent Change
338 -- Cotton Shirts -- Men’s and Boys’	1.388	14.902	973%
339 -- Cotton Shirts -- Women’s and Girls’	1.723	27.340	1487%
347 – Cotton Trousers – Men’s and Boys’	2.402	37.285	1452%
348 – Cotton Trousers – Women’s and Girls’	3.649	60.795	1566%
638 – MMF Shirts – Men’s and Boys’	1.550	7.675	395%
639 – MMF Shirts – Women’s and Girls’	6.742	28.246	318%
647 – MMF Trousers – Men’s and Boys’	6.419	24.128	275%
648 – MMF Trousers – Women’s and Girls’	2.750	9.719	253%
352 – Cotton Underwear	4.255	20.809	389%
652 – MMF Underwear	10.632	38.365	260%
U.S. Department of Commercehttp://www.otexa.ita.doc.gov/