Major countries removed their textile trading quotas as scheduled on January 1, but many restrictive measures remain, especially for China.

The European Union said it has eliminated quotas on 210 textiles and clothing items last Saturday.

The United States, Canada and Turkey, major countries which ran a quota system on textile trade before January 1, 2005, also removed their quotas according to their promises.

The moves are in line with the agreement among World Trade Organization (WTO) members inked a decade ago, though some textile manufacturers asked to postpone the quota elimination for fear of the challenge of free trade.

The trade volume put under quota restriction accounts for about 70 per cent of the total global textile trade, and the trade volume that is free of quota restriction is about 30 per cent.

The cancelled quota of the United States is estimated to be worth US$76 billion.

Many analysts have forecast competitive Chinese textiles will swamp the world market after the lifting of quotas.

But Ma Bin, a manager from the Ningbo Shenzhou Textile Group, said exports had not increased quickly in the new year.

"We are still watching what kind of moves other countries will apply," he said.

He said many foreign companies are cautious about making deals because of possible trade barriers.

Ma's worry is not groundless as many countries have prepared or are writing measures against increasing Chinese textile exports, according to Sun Huaibin, a spokesman from the China Textile Industry Association.

For example, the EU regulation introduces a statistical monitoring system for imports of textiles and clothing products from China, to assess whether safeguard measures should be imposed in case of a sudden increase in imports of textile and clothing products from China.

But the EU official said earlier they are reluctant to initiate safeguard procedures.

The United States has threatened to impose safeguards on Chinese textiles and it had accepted 12 requests ranging from shirts to trousers.

The Bush administration is expected to begin making decisions on the import-curbing requests in early February.

Its moves have angered US textile retailers who filed the case in the Court of International Trade in New York.

The court issued a preliminary injunction last Thursday which blocks the Bush administration from considering the 12 petitions.

(China Daily January 5, 2005)