EU, China fail to agree on textile trade
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Talks between the European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, held today in Beijing, brought no compromise on unblocking 80 milion pieces of Chinese textiles impounded in the EU.
The clothing is held in European warehouses due to overshoot of the China-to-the-EU export quotas. In June, the EU member states agreed to raise the limit by approximately 10%, but EU importers and Chinese producers continue to push for a greater amount of trade.
Concerns on textiles imported from Asia have split the EU countries: those with strong retail sector support increasing the quotas, while others, which have large clothing industries (Spain, Portugal, Italy) want to keep, or even reduce, limits in the future.
A similar dispute exists between China and the United States. On Friday, George W. Bush's administration announced new quotas on imports of Chinese bras and synthetic fabric, after negotiations between both countries broke down.
Sources
edit- Richard McGregor. "EU and China fail to agree on impounded clothing" — Financial Times, September 4, 2005
- "Europe upbeat on end to quota row" — BBC News, September 4, 2005
The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication. Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. |