US and Mexican textile industry leaders have launched a joint effort to promote trade competitiveness in North America and step up efforts to combat illegal Chinese trade, which they say is a “disruptive force” in world textile markets.

Meeting in Charlotte, leaders of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) and Mexico’s Camara Nacional de la Industria Textil (CANAINTEX) said they will focus on issues of subsidies, customs enforcement and regional trade infrastructure.

Claiming that the two textile industries are “inextricably linked,” CANAINTEX President David Garcia said the two industries must work together “to secure our collective future.” Officials said this is particularly important in view of the recent decisions to amend the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) to implement regulations covering the country of origin of pocketing materials in trousers and cumulation of fabric manufactured outside of the agreement region.

NCTO Chairman Anderson Warlick, said, “China’s textile and apparel complex employs more workers than the entire US manufacturing sector and today gets more than five dozen subsidies from the Chinese government, and as a result China has wreaked havoc throughout the world textile and apparel trading sector each time trade restraints are removed.”

The trade officials, among other things, are urging the US government to incorporate China into a trade-monitoring program that has been in effect for some 18 months with Vietnam. That move is strongly opposed by US textile and apparel importers.

Textile industry trade officials agreed to work with textile and apparel organizations from the CAFTA-DR and Andean nations areas to develop a “coordinated strategy” on trade issues that lie ahead.

August 5, 2008