China not to keep silence on limited access to EU textile market

An official with the research academy of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in an interview with the International Finance News yesterday that if EU made a unfavorable evaluation on Chinese textiles in its review on its new Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) on April 6, China would likely act quickly to support its textile exporters to take the case to the World Trade Organization.

If that happened, it would be China¡¯s first independent action to engage in a WTO lawsuit.

On February 10 this year, the European Commission declared its plan to implement the GSP as of April 1, 3 months earlier than scheduled, which excluded Chinese products under 16 categories from the list. However, the EU members have failed to reach an agreement on the new GSP arrangement.

As learned some of Chinese textiles will face a 95 percent slash of favorable tariffs once the new GSP is launched.

The official insisted that Chinese textiles would have an even tougher time on the world market if no action was taken against the increasing protectionism measures targeting Chinese textiles following the removal of quotas in January.

"Of course, an intensive trade war is not what we want," she said.

Opinions on this issue vary among EU members. France and Italy are major textile and apparel producers and are calling for containing Chinese textile imports. But Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, thought it was too early to judge the impact of the quotas removal on EU textiles.

By People's Daily Online