Can Textile Quotas Cancel Saving Exports?

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce announced that it will no longer carry out the export volume of textile products exported to the United States, and license management and export license management of textile exports from January 1, 2009.

This means that from next year, China's textile exports will no longer be restricted by quotas.

But the response was cold.

Zhang Weifeng, manager of the foreign trade department of Zhejiang Light Textile Group Import and Export Co., Ltd. believes that the recent global financial crisis has weakened the ability of the United States to pay. Even if quota restrictions are lifted, it is difficult to change the trend of export decline.

In the short term, the Ministry of Commerce has made two textile export policies. Since August 1, 2008, the export rebate rate of some textiles and clothing has increased from 11% to 13%, and the quota of textiles has been abolished since January 1, 2009.

The introduction of these Measures means "promoting exports and ensuring growth".

Overall, however, these positive policies can play a limited role.

At present, the export of textiles and other products and the trend of slowing economic growth have been established. It is difficult to reverse the export tax rebates or quota restrictions.

As we all know, because of the spread of the US subprime mortgage crisis from the financial sector to the real economy, the consumption of textile products in the United States has begun to decline, which will directly affect the export of our textiles to the United States.

At present, the proportion of textiles in the US market is close to 30%, and the decline in the demand for clothing products directly affects the export of textiles and garments in China.

According to statistics, in the first half of 2008, the United States imported $32 billion 997 million from the world, which dropped by 1 billion 389 million US dollars, a decrease of 4.04%, of which 583 million US dollars came from the Chinese market, accounting for 41.97%.

Although China's abolition of export quotas will increase the volume of textiles exported to the United States, textile exporters may still encounter restrictions on US trade barriers.

It is further concluded that various kinds of trade protection measures such as the United States non-tariff barriers, anti-dumping and regional trade alliance system may obstruct the normal development and export of China's textile industry.

Especially with the expiration of the textile agreement between China and the United States at the end of 2008, the export of textile products in China will probably cause a chaotic situation of increasing volume and price reduction again, and this situation will continue for at least one to two years.

For example, in addition to adopting the anti dumping act and the 201 clause to restrict our textiles, the United States can also refer to "special safeguard measures" aimed only at Chinese enterprises.

It is understood that this is a special textile protection agreement signed by China and the United States when it joined the WTO. In November 2007, the US government announced the implementation of special restrictive measures against three categories of Chinese knitted fabrics, bra and robe products based on the agreement.

Since the beginning of this year, the threshold for textiles and clothing imports has also been improving.

Following the toy recall in 2007, the US has frequently used the recall mechanism for Chinese textiles and clothing.

In the first half of this year, the United States announced 12 recall reports on textiles and clothing in China through its consumer product safety committee.

In the new situation, the US market will lead to the recession of the US market, which will inevitably lead to the rise of trade protectionism. Therefore, the export of US textiles will face the threat of the US market shrinking on the one hand and the threat of trade remedy measures on the other hand.

Chen Lipeng, director of the Fair Trade Bureau of the Guangdong Provincial Department of foreign trade and economic cooperation, said that in order to prevent the rapid growth of China's textile exports, it is possible for the United States to take trade remedy measures or technical barriers to set obstacles to Chinese enterprises.

According to the data available, China's textile exports to the United States have declined for 5 consecutive months. What changes will have to be observed in the future? But if the United States still asks for restrictions on the "quantity explosion", the possibility of reducing the number of exports to the US will still exist.

In fact, although the United States advertised itself as a complete market economy country, trade is liberalized completely, but the so-called trade liberalization is not completely free. In recent years, the export of Chinese enterprises to the US is still subject to many non-tariff barriers such as anti-dumping and countervailing.

Therefore, even if our country cancels the quota of export quota, textile enterprises should pay attention to market diversification and do not place all their hopes on the US market.

The author believes that textile companies should not do business with American businesses in the case of lower consumption and increased market risk.

It is worth noting that after the abolition of textile export quotas by the Ministry of Commerce, all enterprises are placed on the same starting line. This seems fair, but in fact, small and medium-sized enterprises are not equal in terms of operating costs.

In this way, some small businesses may scramble for the US order with lower quotations, thus confusing the market. The industry experts are worried about this. Therefore, some experts suggest that textile export enterprises should prevent low price competition, and the industry must be content with each other, so that they can not compete with each other in price wars.