INTERNATIONAL TEXTILE TRADE GROUPS SET WTO AGENDA

INTERNATIONAL TEXTILE TRADE GROUPS SET WTO AGENDA    Textile and clothing trade groups from the United States, Canada, Mexico, the European Union and Turkey recently met in Washington to develop a strategy to promote the industry under the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Agenda.
   Groups attending the meeting were the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Canadian Textiles Institute, Camara Nacional de la Industria Textil de Mexico, Euratex, and the Turkish Clothing Manufacturers Association. Together the companies of these associations employ more than 5.2 million employees.
   The associations agreed to address the “massive imbalance” in trade opportunities between developed importing countries and closed markets of the developing countries, especially in Asia.
   The priority objectives for actions by their governments are:
   * Obtain within WTO rules and disciplines an opening of a number of large potential markets in Asia and elsewhere totally closed to textile and apparel trade, especially through tariff reductions.
   * Make no concessions regarding the implementation of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing.
   * Avoid any weakening of WTO safeguards, antidumping, and antisubsidy instruments, which will remedy unfair trade practices by Jan. 1, 2005, and end the textile and apparel quota system.
   * End at the next WTO ministerial conference in 2003 the “de-facto moratorium” for developing countries regarding infringements of intellectual property rights.
   *S eek commitments that all WTO members take “appropriate and prompt measures to stamp out wide-spread fraud, smuggling and transshipment of textile and apparel products.”