LAT: China Dons Even Bigger Export Hat...Raising Alarms in Europe and US [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

China Dons Even Bigger Export Hat
Apparel and textile shipments surge in January as quotas expire, raising alarms in Europe and the U.S.

By Evelyn Iritani, Don Lee and Marla Dickerson, Times Staff Writers


An explosion in Chinese apparel and textile exports is fueling a backlash in the United States and Europe, while triggering labor shortages in China and job losses elsewhere.

The outcry was triggered this week by new data showing a sharp increase in China's clothing and textile exports in January. New Year's Day marked the expiration of a decades-old global quota system that had limited China's market share.

Unhindered by quotas, China's sales to the United States surged 65%, to $1.4 billion, compared with the same month last year, according to data released this week by the China National Textile and Apparel Council. Shipments to the European Union jumped 46% to $1.5 billion....

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U.S. manufacturers are set to hold a news conference in Washington today to urge the Bush administration to move quickly to impose controls on the most popular Chinese imports. They blame China for flooding the U.S. market with goods, triggering plant closures and thousands of job cuts in January and February....

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...most industry observers believe that the latest data confirm what many predicted — that China is well on its way to dominating the global apparel and textile market, and the biggest losers will be competitors in many of the world's poorest countries....


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-textile11mar11,0,551927.story?coll=la-home-business