For
Immediate Release:
Oct.
13, 2005
Beijing,
China
-- The latest round of
China
talks ended with the Chinese government hardening
its position and the
U.S.
textile industry urging the
U.S.
government to unilaterally impose new limits on
Chinese imports of textile and apparel products in
ten safeguard cases up for decisions over the
next several weeks. The
industry also announced it had filed a new
safeguard petition asking for restraints on
surging imports of towels (Category 363) from
China. The
industry thanked the
U.S.
government for its continuing efforts to construct
a fair agreement while noting that
China's
intransigence makes it increasingly difficult to
reach an agreement before the end of the year.
Cass
Johnson, President of National Council of Textile
Organizations (NCTO), commented: "At this
round, China
returned to its position of delay and no
compromise by insisting on terms for an agreement
that were impossible for the
U.S.
government to accept and that would have been
extremely damaging to the
U.S.
industry and its workers. As a
result, the
U.S.
textile industry has filed another safeguard
petition today and will continue to file petitions
as subsidized imports from
China
cause U.S.
textile plants to close and
U.S.
textile workers to lose their jobs."
Said
Auggie Tantillo, Executive Director of the
American Manufacturing Trade Action Committee
(AMTAC),
"China's
failure to negotiate reasonably ensures that there
will be an atmosphere of uncertainty for anyone
seeking to import textile goods into the
U.S.
from China
for sometime to come. In fact,
the only thing that is certain is that the
U.S.
industry will continue to file and press for
adoption of safeguard petitions in order to
prevent
China
from its aggressive disruption of the
U.S.
market in 2006."
NOTE: Imports of
towels from
China
have increased by 224% during the first eight
months of the year.
Cass
Johnson, NCTO: +1
240-643-6618 / in US, contact Missy Branson:
202-822-8026
Auggie
Tantillo, AMTAC: +1
202-285-9995 / in US, contact Lloyd Wood:
202-452-0866 or lwood@amtacdc.org