|
button
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
On January 1, 2005, the remaining quotas on imports of textiles and apparel from countries that illegally subsidize their export industries - particularly, China, India, Pakistan - are scheduled to be removed. The effect is widely expected to be catastrophic to textile and apparel exporters around the world. Up to 30 million jobs, most of which are located in developing or least developed countries, are expected to be lost.
The World Bank estimates that upwards of $200 billion in apparel trade will shift to China over the next few years, most of it from very poor countries that depend on this trade to provide tens of millions of jobs. If the quota phase-out occurs, China , through its use of illegal trade practices, will be the beneficiary of the one of the largest short term transfers of wealth from the Third World in history.
In the United States, the same studies show that the U.S. textile and apparel sector, one of the largest manufacturing employers in the country, will be virtually destroyed, with job losses estimated in the range of 650,000 and more than 1,300 textile plants in the United States being closed. |
|
The New Threat From China
When the quota phase-out
was originally agreed to almost ten years
ago, the rapid surge in illegal government
subsidization by a few Asian governments,
most notably China , was not contemplated.
At the time, China was not amember of
the WTO, nor was Chinayetengaging in the
enormous amounts of illegal subsidization
that it has embarked on duringthe past four
years.
Various studies today
predict that China will take between 50 and
75 percent of the world trade intextiles and
apparel oncequotas are removed. Inthe United
States , China is estimated to bepositioned
to monopolize between 65 and 75 percent of
the U.S.market.
China today illegally
subsidizes its exports of textiles and
apparel in numerous ways:
deliberate undervaluation of its
currency (estimated at 40%); direct
subsidies to it's state-owned textile and
apparel sector; export subsidies in the form
of a 13 percent export tax "rebate," and
through the deliberate proliferation of
non-performing loans ("free capital")
through its central bank.
For more information, go to
www.fairtextiletrade.org
- the home site of the Global Alliance for
Fair Trade in Textiles (GAFTT) and the
signatories of the Istanbul Declaration.
|
|
| |
 |
|
 | |
|
|
National Council of Textile Organizations
|
|
