Trade Protectionism Of The Group Of 20 Affects Clothing Exports

A few days ago, leaders of three international organizations warned leaders of the group of 20 countries (G20) that their governments had made too many restrictive measures affecting trade in the past six months.

From mid October 2010 to mid April 2011, 122 new trade protection measures were implemented by the group of 20.

The chairman of the World Trade Organization (WTO), PascalLamy, Secretary General of the world economic cooperation and Development Organization (OECD) and AngelGurria, Secretary General of the joint China World Trade Center Conference on Development (UN), pointed out in their May 24th report that "the pressure on them to resist trade protectionism seems to be increasing."

Lamy said collective controlled trade measures are raising panic, with the recent global outbreak.

Such measures include the re prohibition of imported clothing used by Argentina, and the requirement for the importation of many new industrial products to apply for the "non automatic import license", covering products including textiles and clothing.

In February 24, 2011, Russia (and the common free trade area of Belarus and Kazakhstan) increased the import tariff of woven fabric products from 5% to 10%.

Similarly, the India government lifted the restrictions on the export of cotton yarn since April 1, 2011. Instead, the new notice stipulates that the export of cotton yarn must be registered with the foreign trade administration of the Ministry of Commerce of India from March 31st onwards.

Turkey is the major exporter of textiles and clothing. It launched the investigation on Safeguard Measures for importing shuttle weaving and clothing products in January 2011, and will implement tariff on temporary safeguard measures since July 21st this year.

WTO estimates that the new restrictions imposed by the group of 20 on imports amounted to US $56 billion 500 million, accounting for 0.6% of the total imports of the group of 20.

In 2008, the financial crisis brought heavy losses to the world economy. After 2009-2010 years of slow recovery, the real economy is still hovering at the bottom of the valley. In order to promote the development of its real economy, various countries' trade protectionism clauses are emerging one after another.

As an export oriented manufacturing industry, China's textile and garment industry has been affected to a certain extent under the influence of these provisions.