NTA President Karl Spilhaus will address how the U.S. textile industry is facing the challenges of change, at TECHTEXTIL NORTH AMERICA, March 28, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia.

As recently as 2003 the U.S. was partner to a mere three free trade agreements (FTAs). Now we have seven, with four more signed and expected to enter into force any day now, and another five being negotiated. The push is on to get these agreements, and more, all approved before President Bush's Trade Promotion Authority expires in June1, 2007. Yet even in the midst of this flurry of trade liberalization the U.S. and other governments have attempted to mitigate the transfer of millions of textile jobs to just a few major supplier countries. On January 1st the U.S.-China bilateral textile and apparel agreement went into force, controlling imports of 21 kinds of products through the year 2008. A similar agreement, running through 2007 was reached, in 2005, between the EU and China. With a further round of global trade liberalization talks on-going it has yet to been seen how far the U.S. and other developed countries are willing to go to protect their own textile industries and those in their preference partners.

Mr. Spilhaus will address the world textile trade outlook through 2008. He will also address some of the areas such as intellectual property rights, equal enforcement of regulatory standards, design innovation, and innovative partnering with global textile leaders that U.S. textile companies are using to prepare to compete post-2008.