November
30, 2004
GENEVA,
SWITZERLAND – Defying a substantial bloc of
developing and least developed countries in the
World Trade Organization’s Council on Trade in
Goods (CTG), China, joined by India and
Pakistan, failed again last week in its
continuing attempts to silence those countries
who have been campaigning to put their concerns
about the quota phase-out on the CTG
agenda. China’s
efforts were strongly and successfully opposed
by a coalition of countries lead by
Turkey,
Sri
Lanka,
El
Salvador,
Mauritius,
Tunisia,
Kenya
and others.
According
to reports,
China
also attempted to quash a series of already
scheduled regional seminars on trade adjustment
assistance that were begun last year and are
continuing into 2005. The purpose of these
seminars is to help developing countries with
WTO trade assistance programs. The
Chinese effort to cancel this WTO outreach
effort reportedly sparked outrage among member
countries.
“By
its strident opposition to any discussion in the
CTG, China unambiguously demonstrated its
intention to use its manipulative and unfair
trade practices to wrest an additional $100
billion in global textile and clothing trade
from other countries,” said Ziya Sukun,
Executive Director of the ITKIB Association USA,
a trade association responsible for promoting
the Turkish textile and clothing industry.
“Instead of viewing
China
as a friend on textile and clothing issues, the
developing world now sees
China
as a predator stalking them like
prey.”
“The
expiration of textile and clothing quotas is an
issue with global economic impact because
textile and clothing exports are so important to
so many countries. For the sake of its own
organizational effectiveness, the WTO would be
remiss to allow a single country to prevent it
from addressing an issue of such critical global
importance like the textile and clothing quota
crisis,” continued Sukun.
GAFTT
also noted attempts to prematurely end
discussion on the economic impact of quotas by
shunting the issue off to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Reportedly, these institutions have proposed
sending several hundred million dollars in
grants and loans to LDCs impacted by the
expiration of quotas. While World Bank and
IMF assistance is appropriate, such limited
one-time aid packages cannot adequately
compensate for the loss of $100 billion in
annual global textile and clothing trade to
China and the accompanying destruction of tens
of millions of manufacturing jobs in the
developing world once quotas
expire.
In
contrast, GAFTT believes that only a
comprehensive solution can meaningfully mitigate
the negative economic impact of the quota
crisis. That is why GAFTT renews its call
for thorough discussions of the Mauritian and
Turkish position papers on the quota expiration
issue during formal meetings of the CTG.
The Mauritian proposal calls for the WTO to
study the economic impact of the expiration of
quotas and for the quota issue to be put on the
CTG’s Permanent Work Program. The Turkish
proposal calls for a safeguard mechanism that
would prevent a few countries from monopolizing
global textile and clothing markets. These
moderate and reasoned proposals are worthy of
extended and careful consideration by the CTG
because they would comprehensively and directly
address the negative economic impact of the
expiration of quotas.
“China’s
impact on global textile and clothing trade will
be severe in 2005,” said Cass Johnson, President
of the National Council of Textile Organizations
(NCTO). “In the clothing categories
removed from quota in 2002,
China
went from 9 percent
U.S.
import market share in 2001 to 72 percent market
share as of June 2004. With
China’s
continued use of unfair and illegal practices
such as currency manipulation, export tax
rebates, and tolerance of non-performing loans,
we expect
China
to capture a similar amount of
U.S.
import market share post
2005.”
Remarked
Auggie Tantillo, Executive Director of the
American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition
(AMTAC), “The impact of the expiration of quotas
is a crisis of global proportions as textiles
and clothing account for 10 percent or more of
merchandise exports from at least 32
countries. Including the EU 15 as one
country, there are 35 countries with textile and
clothing exports of $1 billion or more.
With so many countries so severely impacted, it
would be irresponsible for the WTO to sweep the
quota issue under the rug.”
CONTACTS:
Lloyd
Wood, Dir. of Media Relations,
AMTAC
+1
(202) 452-0866 or lwood@amtacdc.org
Ziya Sukun, Executive
Director, ITKIB Association
USA
