China and the United States will hold the fifth round of talks on textiles over two days from yesterday in Washington D.C., and Chinese experts said it is hard for the two sides to make important breakthroughs due to their wide divergence.
Although the two sides claimed that they had adopted flexible stances in the fourth round of the textile talks and their points of view have become closer, a marked divergence still exists on many important issues, said Zhao Yumin, an expert with China Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
Due to a notable divergence on the range of restrictive measures, growth rate and cardinal number, there is still a long way to go before new agreement is reached, Zhao said.
Considering the rank of officials participating in the talks, there is little possibility for the two sides to reach an all-round deal, she said.
Lu Jianhua, director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, will be chief Chinese negotiator while David Spooner, special negotiator for textile at the US Trade Representative's Office, is his American counterpart.
Sun Huaibin, spokesman for the China Textile Industry Council, also agreed there is little hope of reaching a pact in the fifth round textile talks.
China's textile industry wishes for an early agreement between the two countries so as to reduce losses caused by uncertainties, Sun said.
The uncertainties caused by US restrictive measures have affected normal bilateral trade, he said, estimating that China's textile exports to the United States have been reduced by at least US$2 to US$3 billion so far this year.
Since the elimination of the global textile quota on January 1, the United States claimed that the surge of textile imports from China has disrupted its domestic market.
(Xinhua)