In spite of Washington's announcement earlier this year to limit imports of Chinese combed cotton yarn, shipments have not exceeded quota limits. Accordingly, should Washington agree to reapply safeguard measures, the quota will be lower than set for 2005. Total US imports of both combed and carded varieties have declined this year whilst plummeting in September. South Korea, Thailand and India have increased shipments in 2005. Earlier this year, Washington decided to impose a quota on imports

Sponsored by China National Textile and Apparel Council, jointly organized by the Sub-Council of Textile Industry of CCPIT, Messe Frankfurt Hong Kong and China Textile Information Center, Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics opened on October 26 in Shanghai as scheduled. It will last to October 29, 2005. 1530 exhibitors from 25 countries or regions appeared at the exhibition, among which 964 are from Mainland China and 567 from the overseas. The total exhibition area reaches 63,000 square meter

Some Chinese shoemakers are likely to suffer following charges from the European Union (EU) that they have dumped cheap footwear onto the EU market. This is according to several of China's top shoemakers, some of whom are preparing for inspections from the European Commission over this issue. And Zhang Guiping, an official with Liuxin Industrial Ltd, a shoe company based in Jiangsu Province, said European buyers at the 98th Chinese Export Commodities Fair, held in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province,

In the first first eight months of 2005, Thai textile and garment exports to the US reached $2.27 billion, up just 3.54 percent year-on-year.In order to expand access to the US market and boost textile exports by 20-25 percent per year, a strategic plan 'Thai-US borderless' has been conceived.Under the initiative titled - Textile and Garment Development Efficiency and Technology Project (T-DET), the Textile and Garment Industry Association will join forces to work out strategic solutions to be p

Continual decline in US domestic fabric production is driven by the fact that cotton yarn import in 2005 recorded sharp drop. A total 8,058 tons of yarn was imported in August, which is the smallest volume of imports since December 2004, which is a 23.6 percent decline compared to last year figures. Yarn imports demands from NAFTA followed by imports from Canada dropped sharply at 24.9 percent to only 1,572 tons.Imports from Mexico stood at 910 tons, down 26.9 percent. Pakistan as a top supplier

Australian Wool Innovation Limited presented the wool market sales for this week.The Australian Wool Market finished this week with prices 1.0 percent lower, on average, at the sales in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle. The AWEX EMI decreased by 6?(-0.9 percent), ending the week at 666?kg clean. This reflected decreases of 10?(-1.5 percent) in the North, coming off last week's Newcastle sale, and 3?(-0.5 percent) in the South, with their corresponding Regional Indicators finishing the week at 671

Statistics of Canada released the Industrial product and raw materials price indexes for September 2005. Monthly prices for manufactured goods at the factory gate were up in September, as gasoline and fuel oil prices continued to rise. Raw materials prices were down in September, following three monthly increases.Prices charged by manufacturers, as measured by the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI), were up 0.4 percent from August to September. Higher prices for petroleum products, lumber pro

The 98th China Export Commodities Fair closed on Sunday in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, with the value of deals growing by a slight 0.7 percent. The fair attracted some 177,000 businessmen from 210 countries and regions, 9.3 percent less than at the last fair half a year ago. However, 29.43 billion US dollars worth of deals were signed, up 0.7 percent. The participants included 74 multinational retailers such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour. The top five purchasers were Chin

China became one of the major victims of trade protectionism in the past nine months or so, suffering from a wide range of trade barriers including anti-dumping, safeguard measures, subsidies and countervailing measures and special safeguard measures. According to the China's Foreign Trade Report (fall, 2005) released on Friday by the Ministry of Commerce, in the first three quarters of this year, China incurred trade frictions involving 8.9 billion US dollars, a growth of more than 700 percen

When Radoslaw Wisniewski was thinking about starting a clothing company in 1995, Poland's low labour costs made local seamstresses the obvious choice.The economic rationale behind that decision is not so obvious now. Redan, the company founded by Mr Wisniewski, has moved almost all of its sewing abroad, mostly to China."At the beginning we tried to produce in Poland. But then we saw a crisis in Polish production because of the cost of labour. The cost of labour was steeply rising and it stopped