Textile industry awaits input on China import agreement

The devil’s in the lack of detail
ALAN PEAT
RECENT PRESS reports of a draft agreement signed between SA and China designed, it was said, to limit Chinese exports of low-priced clothing and textiles into an already beleaguered SA market, whipped up new optimism among the local industry. An Independent Foreign Service report at the end of last month quoted Zhou Yabin, the director-general for west Asia and Africa in the Chinese ministry of commerce, saying that the agreement had been circulated by SA’s department of trade and industry (DoT&I) to its textile industry for comment – but refusing to give any details until it had been finalised. But the excitement faded somewhat when Brian Brink, executive director of the SA Textile Federation, told FTW that it was nothing new. A high-level meeting of senior parties in the textile and clothing industry and the DoT&I had already been held in April – with the industry representatives being told little more than that the two countries had agreed to an agreement. “Frankly,” said Brink, “they didn’t tell us a lot. “Nothing about a base year for a limit on imports from China, for example, nor any of the products concerned. Really very little detail.” Although the Chinese authorities had suggested a number of ways they might control the cheap exports – which are pricing a lot of southern African textile and clothing industries out of business – nothing had yet been decided on, nor anything yet signed and sealed. An agreement to talk about an agreement did nothing in the meantime to help an SA industry being badly hit by these cheap imports, Brink suggested, and a lot of further damage could still be done before any controls are put in place.