The 10th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO textile and garment industry trade friction continues to heat up

2011 is the 10th year of China's accession to the WTO. While reaping the crown of the world's second largest economy, the largest exporter and the second largest importer, China is growing under internal and external pressures such as industrial upgrading and global trade protectionism.

Rapid growth of China's textile exports

The decade of China's accession to the WTO is one of the fastest and best periods for China's development. Statistics show that in the past 10 years, China's export scale and import scale have increased by 4.9 times and 4.7 times respectively; it has attracted about more than 700 billion US dollars of foreign investment, and more than 480 of the world's top 500 companies have established business in China. During this period, the export of China's textile industry has entered a stage of steady growth after experiencing the rapid growth of quota liberalization. Affected by the international financial crisis in 2008, the world's textile and clothing trade declined, and the export growth rate of the industry slowed down. The average annual growth rate from 2005 to 2008 was only 0.03 percentage points higher than that from 2000 to 2005.

China's textile exports totaled $206.5 billion in 2010, up 75.72 percent from $117.5 billion in 2005 and 268.75 percent from $56 billion in 2000. China's textile and clothing exports accounted for 32.71 percent of the global market, and the proportion was further increased. This shows that under the new situation, the international competitive advantage of China's textile industry is not only maintained, but also improved. (15% in 2000, 24% in 2005)

Trade Protection to China Becomes Normal

In the past 10 years, China's international trade frictions have shown a rapid growth trend. Especially since the outbreak of the international financial crisis, the economic recovery process of various countries has been further divided, the macro-policy self-care tendency of some major economies has been strengthened, and trade protectionism has been heating up. China has become the main target country of trade protectionism. From 1980 to 1989, China's anti-dumping cases accounted for 4.6 per cent of the world's total number of anti-dumping cases; from 1990 to 1999, it reached 13.2 per cent; from 2000 to 2009, China's anti-dumping cases accounted for 26.3 per cent of the world's total number of anti-dumping cases, of which from 2005 to 2009 it reached 34.7 per cent.

Textiles and clothing, as China's main export products, have accounted for a large proportion of global trade relief cases in the past 10 years since China's accession to the WTO. According to the investment analysis and Prospect Forecast Report of China's chemical fiber industry from 2010 to 2015 released by CIC consultants, from 2001 to 2008, foreign countries launched 55 special safeguard measures for China's textiles. In 2009, the global trade protection cases against China's textile and clothing export products reached a record high. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, there were 45 cases of anti-dumping of Chinese textiles and clothing in 2009. It involves a series of products from raw materials to terminal, such as chemical fiber filament, chemical fiber staple fiber, curtain, ribbon, electric blanket, curtain cloth, cotton yarn, bed sheet, linen, narrow loom, etc.

From the perspective of the situation of trade protection measures, it can be roughly divided into two categories: policy and technical. Policy trade protection measures are mainly anti-dumping and one insurance (anti-dumping, countervailing and special safeguard measures). It is the form and means of law to restrict other countries to enter its market or pose a threat to its related industries. In recent years, such measures have become normalized, and more and more are found in developing countries such as India and Pakistan, which are at the same level of competition with us in the international market.

Technical trade protection measures are mostly concentrated in developed economies such as the United States, Japan, the European Union, and Canada. Developed economies have sound standards systems and testing institutions. In order to prevent the impact of China's textiles and clothing on its market, a number of new regulations have been issued and updated, such as REACH regulations, banned azo dyes, textile eco-label standards, OekoTex100 certification standards and so on.

In fact, in recent years, the international trade protection of China's textile and clothing exports by various countries and regions has become increasingly normal. Whether it is policy or technical trade protection measures, the export of China's textile and garment products will face greater cost pressure and risk.

Since the beginning of this year, the trade protectionist measures suffered by China's textile and clothing exports have decreased compared with the same period last year. Judging from the current figures, the EU RAPEX system and the US CPSC in the first quarter of this year to China's textile and apparel export products recall decreased, compared with the same period last year, a decrease of 88.5 and 35.71. At the same time, the number of global anti-dumping investigations on China's textile and clothing exports has also decreased compared with the same period last year, by 62.5 per cent.

Analyzing the reasons for the decrease in trade protection cases in the first quarter, we believe that on the one hand, my country's exports of textiles and clothing to the European Union and the United States have decreased due to seasonal factors from January to February this year; on the other hand, the two main sponsors of the recall notification have significantly reduced the number of recalls of various products worldwide during the same period; third, the EU has turned more attention to major export competitors, such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries.

Strengthening the awareness of protection is the key

In the face of the increasingly complex trade protection situation, China's textile and garment export enterprises should strengthen protection from three aspects:

First of all, enterprises should strengthen their awareness of self-protection when receiving orders. They must strictly review the design plans of foreign customers in accordance with standards and related requirements, stifle the potential safety hazards caused by unreasonable design specifications from the source, and standardize the signing of contracts at the same time, and strive to clarify the contract. Security clauses.

Secondly, enterprises should train professionals in product design and testing, establish a strict product quality control system, and always pay attention to the development of relevant production, sales, packaging and other standards and instructions in the United States; in the production process, strictly follow the standards to improve product quality and be in line with international standards; at the same time, prepare to build a laboratory according to the conditions to effectively monitor the production process of products, to improve the self-inspection and self-inspection capabilities of enterprises, some powerful enterprises can also strengthen cooperation with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to avoid unnecessary losses.

Finally, enterprises should also actively respond with the help of all sectors. For example, enterprises need to keep abreast of the relevant policies of the country, communicate more with industry associations, chambers of commerce, laws and other organizations in export places, and unite with peers to exchange information, learn from each other, and deal with them together; at the same time, they should also make rational use of the media for enterprise publicity and be good at safeguarding the reputation and image of enterprises.