As a cotton grower, Zhang Jishen knows little about international trade rows, but he has had the feeling that the imminent harvest in his 3-hectare cotton field is no passport to his fortune this year.
Sensing this will affect his very livelihood, Zhang said he has been concerned with the sixth round of textile talks with the United States in Beijing, 250 kilometers from his home village in Zhufutun township of Zhengding County, Hebei Province.
To his disappointment, the two-day talks ended yesterday without reaching an agreement.
"If the US continues its restrictions, my cotton will sell much cheaper and my 30,000 yuan (US$3,700) of investment in the cotton field will go down the drain," he said.
Marketing was not a problem for Zhang, a contracted cotton grower for several export-oriented textile firms in southern China. Today, however, many textile companies, bogged down by the US and EU restrictions on Chinese textile exports, have had to cut orders and shrink production.
Zhang, 52, said a cotton field was no gold mine even when cotton sold well in recent years. "Each hectare could yield more than 10,000 yuan, but costs on cotton seeds, fertilizer and cotton-picking laborers added up to 9,000 yuan per hectare," he said.
His neighbor Ma Xiu'e is also worried. "If cotton doesn't sell well this year, I'm afraid my two kids will have to drop out of school," she said.
Cotton growing
Cotton-related industries involve about 26 million people in Hebei Province that neighbors Beijing, says Yang Shanxing, president of Hebei Provincial Cotton Association.
He estimates China's cotton acreage is about 5.3 million hectares this year and its output is expected to reach around 6 million tons.
"Nationwide, cotton growing, textiles and related industries involve up to 200 million people. The US and EU restrictions will undoubtedly affect their livelihood, directly or indirectly," Yang said.
According to a latest China-EU deal reached on September 5, Chinese textiles blocked at European ports were to enter the European Union again as of September 14, ending a trade row that had items from lingerie to pullovers pile up in customs warehouses.
China Textile Industry Council has predicted the US restrictive measures will cut China's textile export to the United States by US$2 billion to US$3 billion since this year, says the council's spokesman Sun Haibin.
For Zhang Jizhen and many expert cotton growers in China, there is no other way out of poverty. "I'm all too ignorant about growing soy beans or corn," he said.
"Our country does export textiles to the United States, but the States also sells mountains of goods to China, doesn't it?"
(Xinhua)