SINGAPORE, 28 August 2003 — It’s cold comfort to thousands of US textile workers who fear cut-throat competition from China, but they are not the only ones whose jobs are threatened. Even as a clamor grows in the United States for protection from the onslaught, producers across Asia are also scrambling to prepare for the lifting of remaining quotas on China’s textile and apparel sales to North America and Europe at the end of 2004.
Some are confident, others are running scared. Some are diversifying, others are concentrating on niche products. All are modernizing and cutting costs, keenly aware of what is at stake. Take Sri Lanka, where 900 apparel factories employ nearly one million people directly and indirectly. Textiles and apparel make up two-thirds of the island’s exports, the central bank says.
“Any problem for the industry would have a devastating impact on the well-being of our people,” said Tuli Cooray, secretary-general of Sri Lanka’s Joint Apparel Association Forum.
China, of course, is already a formidable competitor. Industry officials blamed the recent closure of North Carolina sheet and towel maker Pillowtex Corp. with the loss of 6,450 jobs on low-cost imports, especially from China. But it is the demise of the 30-year-old Multi-Fiber Agreement at the end of next year, ending strict quotas imposed by Western governments on big producers like China and India, that is sending shockwaves through the United States — and Asia.
Thomas Aquino, Philippine undersecretary for international trade, told Reuters he felt the Southeast Asian nation had a very good chance of retaining a competitive garments industry. But Aquino added in the next breath: “We talk often to the industry to urge them to have a really good, honest look at whether they’d like to still stay (in business) beyond ‘04.”
As part of the agreement covering China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001, importing countries will be allowed to impose safeguards until the end of 2008. But that would only delay the day of reckoning: both the World Bank and Deutsche Bank project that China will more than double its share of world apparel exports to nearly 50 percent; it will also gain in textiles, though less explosively.
The American Textile Manufacturers’ Institute recently estimated that “made in China” garments could grab 65-75 percent of the US market. Without safeguards, it fears 1,300 plants could go under with the loss of 630,000 jobs by as soon as 2006.
China acknowledges such worries. While officials believe fears that China could wipe out whole industries are exaggerated, they say they are already reacting to the growing unease. “Thus, we’ve done some things like cut export tax rebates for domestic textile exporters to help curb export momentum. We hope these kind of measures will help to ease their concerns,” said Liu Huilan of the China National Textile Industry Council.
India also stands to benefit from the abolition of quotas, according to Tripat Bajaj of New Delhi textile consultants Creatnet, which expects the sector’s exports to soar to at least $15 billion by 2010 from around $6 billion now.
“Our view is that the major benefit is going to go to China, but in particular categories India will be very, very competitive,” Bajaj said. “Buyers don’t want to put all their eggs in the China basket.”
The quick response time and innovation of Indian firms would win them business in sectors like cotton tops and children’s wear and where they are now bound by quotas, Bajaj added. “India is just waking up to the reality that it can do better,” he said.
On the other side of the ledger, one of the most vulnerable countries is Cambodia, most of whose leading exports are in the apparel and textile categories where China is now handcuffed. Sethaput Suthiwart-Narueput, of the World Bank’s Bangkok office, fears many Cambodian factories are doomed.
Ray Chew of the Garment Manufacturers’ Association of Cambodia admits his industry, which he says employs 210,000 people and accounted for 93 percent of Cambodia’s recorded exports in 2002, cannot compete on cost grounds with China.
So it is thinking instead of a branding campaign highlighting how Cambodia’s factories comply with the International Labour Organization’s core labor standards. “We sell under the niche of ‘non-sweatshop’ labor, appealing to the more socially conscious consumers in the advanced economies,” Chew said by e-mail.
In the Philippines, companies are girding for the China challenge by concentrating on value-added sectors such as embroidery and hard-to-handle fabrics and developing brands, said George Siy, president of the Confederation of Garment Exporters.
