Italy wants to extend China's EU textiles quota

Italy will seek an extension of soon-to-expire quotas on Chinese clothing and textiles entering Europe but it will be difficult to get China to agree, Italy's trade minister said yesterday.

The European Commission negotiated the quotas with China in 2005 amid what was dubbed "Bra Wars".

Textile producers in Italy and other European countries are worried there will be a surge of imports from China when the quotas expire in December, especially because similar limits in the United States and other countries run until the end of 2008.

"The Italian government is aware of the issue. There is a sort of mismatch of dates," Italian Trade Minister Emma Bonino said. "Of course it is not easy to get China to simply accept to put everybody on the same date, but we will try anyhow."

Ms Bonino noted Italian producers had invested and undergone painful restructuring in recent years to make higher-value textiles that are less vulnerable to Chinese competition.

"They are worried but they are not panicking," she said during a debate on globalisation organised by the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think-tank.

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson has said he will monitor imports of clothes and textiles when the quotas expire but any move to extend them would require the agreement of China.

The 2005 "Bra Wars" split the EU, pitting countries with big textiles industries, among them Italy, France and Spain, which pushed for the quotas against more free-trading countries such as Sweden which saw the limits as protectionism.