FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: KARL SPILHAUS, National Textile Association
Telephone: (617) 542-8220

BOSTON, November 19, 2003 -- The National Textile Association is pleased that the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) has decided to implement the China textile safeguard with regard to all three products that we requested. "Our members make fabric in the U.S. and they have been severely harmed by the flood of knitted fabric and of apparel coming from China since quotas were removed in January 2002," said NTA president Karl Spilhaus. 316,000 U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing jobs have been lost since January 2001 -- that's 30 percent of all U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing jobs.

The National Textile Association believes that the human aspect of this story of job losses must be considered. When a textile mill closes the ripples travel through the community," continued Spilhaus. "Schools close because the tax base of the town has been undermined. People go bankrupt. People lose their homes. Water-treatment, police, fire fighting, libraries, all the things that communities provide, suffer when the largest employers in town -- this is particularly true in the rural southeast and northeast -- closes.

Members of NTA produce knitted fabric, the subject of one of the petitions, and manufacture the fabric components that make up brassieres and dressing gowns "The U.S. market is one of the most open in the world," said NTA chairman William Giblin, president of Tweave, Inc., in Norton, Mass. "The Chinese, on the other hand, use multiple tariff and non-tariff barriers to keep out our products. "The U.S. government must work to stop illegal currency manipulation and textile transshipments. China is a locus of massive IPR violations inflicting hundreds of millions of dollars of harm annually on U.S. textile and apparel producers."

"We see these safeguards as a good beginning," continued Giblin. "We call on the U.S. government to negotiate a comprehensive bilateral agreement with the Chinese that covers all sensitive textile and apparel categories. This would eliminate business risk and uncertainty for all sides. This is what the U.S. government has almost always done in the past when it has implemented a quantitative import limitation like the China safeguard."

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CHINA SAFEGUARDS

What products are covered?

The safeguards apply to three textile products imported into the U.S. from China


--Knitted fabric made in China and imported into the U.S. as fabric rolls.
--Brassieres of cotton or man-made fiber assembled in China (of Chinese or other fabric) and imported into the U.S.
--Dressing gowns of cotton or man-made fiber assembled in China (of Chinese or other fabric) and imported into the U.S.

Why only these three products?

The regulations for the China Textile Safeguard severely limited the range of products eligible for the safeguard. We could ask for the safeguard only on products that satisfied all these criteria:

--Must have been under quota formerly but, as of Jan. 1, 2002 were no longer under quota
--Must be from China (fabric knit in China or garments cut-and-sewn in China
--Must show swell of imports from China since Jan. 1, 2002
--Must show harm to U.S. industry making that particular product.

For example, man-made fiber swimsuit are still under quota until Jan. 1, 2005, so we were barred from asking for any relief from swimsuits imports.

What about fabric knit in China and shipped to other countries to be made into garments to be sent to the U.S?

Knit fabric from China could still be exported from China to other countries and imported into the U.S. in the form of garments because garments are considered to "originate" in the country of garment assembly, not the country where the fabric was made.

When does the safeguard take effect?

The November 17 decision of the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) sets two things in motion.

First, the U.S. government formally requests consultations with China on a mutually satisfactory solution. Consultations will be held within 30 days of China's receipt of the request for consultation. Every effort will be made to reach agreement on a mutually satisfactory solution with 90 days of receipt of the request for consultations.

Second, Immediately after China's receipt of the request for consultations, the U.S. will impose limits on imports from China of these products. Those limits will be in place until a mutually satisfactory solution is reached, or for one year (whichever is less).

What will be the level of the limits?

Immediately upon Chinese receipt of the U.S. request for consultation, a limit on each product is imposed at the level of 7.5 percent above the amount of Chinese imports into the U.S. during the first 12 months of the most recent 14 months preceding the month in which the request for consultation was made. These limits will continue for one year, or until a mutually satisfactory solution is reached (whichever is sooner)

Consultations with China may result in ongoing limits on these products. NTA has advocated a more comprehensive and longer term agreement be negotiated in view of the elimination of all textile and apparel quotas January 1, 2005. It is also possible that the consultation will result in a complete capitulation to the Chinese and no effective ongoing limits. We believe that negative an outcome is remote.