Himalayan News Service

Beijing, July 20:

Chinese textile companies are striving to diversify export markets for their products in the face of US threats to impose restrictions on se-veral lines of Chinese-made garments, reports Xinhua.

“It’s a top priority for us to diversify our products and further tap the world market,” said a business executive in the city of Ningbo in China’s east, “We must not cling to the US market alone. Domestic companies have to set up their own early warning systems.”

“We would be in a passive and embarrassing position if we hastily seek counter measures only after other countries have imposed restrictions,” he said.

As one of China’s most recognised brands for garments, his company Youngor has avoided production of ‘100 per cent cotton’ shirts and jackets after the US slapped quotas on Chinese-made cotton-knitted shirts and pants.

Trade tensions between the US and China have been rising, after Washington ran up a $162 billion deficit with Beijing last year, the largest ever with a single country.

Under pressure from domestic textile industry to stop the flood of Chinese exports following the end to the global quota regime from January 1, the US put a 7.5 per cent cap on the annual increase of imports of China-made cotton shirts, trousers and man-made fibre underwear in May, saying an import surge from China had ‘caused market disruption’.

Despite several rounds of talks, including the just-ended annual session of the Sino-US Joint Committee on Commerce and Trade in Beijing, no breakthrough has been made on the textile dispute. Yet most textile firms are not too perturbed at the threat of more US restrictions. “We cannot get anywhere by criticising the US alone,” said Jin Changyi, general manager of Golden Globe Textile Corp, “The only thing we can do at the moment is to fix our production and marketing strategies.”

Jin said his company would focus on the Middle East and African markets and increase the proportion of high-end products, particularly genuine silk garments.