Surging textile exports are part and parcel of free trade and the United States and Europe should avoid trying to restrict imports, a spokesman for China's textile makers said yesterday.
China has imposed its own tax to restrain textile exports and producers are considering self-imposed restraints, said Cao Xinyu, vice chairman of the official China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles.
The explosive growth of China's textile exports since the end of a global quota system on January 1 has prompted US and European producers to lobby for government protection.
The United States says its imports of Chinese textiles jumped 33.6 percent in January to US$1.05 billion, despite China's export tax. Washington is considering a plan to cap such growth at 7.5 percent a year.
"If we go back to the old road of the quotas, it is going to ruin our achievements" in negotiating China's entry into the World Trade Organization, Cao said. "We do not agree with that. We think we have equal rights and responsibilities."
China's trading partners have their own obligations, he said.
"If you want us to buy Boeing airplanes, you have to give us the export income to afford them," said Cao, whose group represents more than 4,000 textile producers.
Cao stressed that China has taken its own steps to limit export growth by imposing a 1.3 percent export tax in January.
Cao said that his group also was considering measures including imposing minimum prices, limiting numbers of new suppliers and creating a mechanism to warn of a surge in sales of individual products.
"None of the plans is perfect, but we think we can find comprehensive measures to solve this problem," he said.
China also faces a threat to exports to Europe under a European Union proposal to end some preferential tariffs. EU members Italy and Portugal, top textile producers, want to slow the rise of Chinese imports.
Cao noted that many China-made textiles are produced for foreign companies and by joint ventures, with profits flowing back to the United States, Europe or Japan.
According to Cao, 40 percent of the country's textile makers are Chinese-foreign joint ventures, while 45 percent are private businesses and only 13 percent are state-owned.
"The whole industry is operating in a highly market-oriented environment," he said.