China and US kick off new textile talks
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-12 15:08

China and the United States kicked off a sixth round of textile talks in Beijing aimed at settling a long drawn-out dispute on China's textile exports.

A Chinese worker inspects spools at a textile company in Hefei, east China's Anhui province October 12, 2005. China and the United States kicked off the sixth round of talks on textiles from October 12 to 13 in Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported. [newsphoto]

The Chinese delegation is headed by Lu Jianhua, chief of foreign trade of the Ministry of Commerce, while the US delegation is led by special textile negotiator David Spooner, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The talks are aimed at a comprehensive agreement to regulate Chinese textile shipments.

Since January 1 this year, the US government has slapped what it calls "cumbersome" quotas on individual categories of Chinese textile exports in response to demands for action from the US industry.

US industry alleges that nearly 400,000 textile and apparel manufacturing jobs in the United States have been lost since 2001, primarily due to a flood of cheap Chinese clothes.

The last round of negotiations ended without agreement in Washington last month.