US, China reach agreement on textile, clothing
(Reuters/AP)
Updated: 2005-11-08 16:34

Workers sew clothes at a garment factory in Hefei, Anhui Province in this undated photo. It is reported China and the US have reached an agreement on China's clothes exports to the US. [newsphoto]

An unnamed US official said the accord would allow hundreds of thousands of Chinese garments piled up in US ports to be sold.

The deal is intended to smooth over a rough spot in the US-China trade relationship before President George Bush visits Beijing in the middle of this month.

China's exports of clothing and textile products to the United States jumped more than 50 percent in the first eight months of 2005 to nearly $17.7 billion following the end of a global quota system on January 1.

That prompted U.S. textile producers to seek protection under a "safeguard" provision of China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organisation. The measure allows WTO members to restrict the growth in imports from China to 7.5 percent annually when there is a market-disrupting surge.

The Bush administration has imposed safeguard curbs on billions of dollars' worth of Chinese clothing imports this year. But because the curbs have to be renewed annually, textile groups have pushed for a comprehensive agreement that would limit imports until 2008 when the safeguard provision expires.

US textile and clothing companies and their labor unions were pushing for a comprehensive deal to stem a flood of Chinese imports that began last January when global quotas, in place for more than three decades, were lifted.

Cass Johnson, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations, said on Sunday the new textile agreement was expected to restrict 34 categories of clothing and textile imports from China through 2008.