Progress made in China textiles talks:US

The US government said it had made "substantial progress" in a fresh round of talks with China in a bid to forge a comprehensive agreement on textiles trade.

It announced a deal with Beijing to limit Chinese sock imports, in a rare breakthrough for the two nations' vexed trade in textiles. But there was no apparent deal to limit other types of fast-growing Chinese garment shipments.

Chief US negotiator David Spooner said the unannounced talks, held in Washington over Sunday to Tuesday, had "yielded substantial progress on a large number of issues."

"We look forward to meeting again soon," he said in a brief statement.

The United States is angry at a flood of Chinese-made textile imports that has flowed into its markets following the scrapping of a global quota system on January 1. It has imposed quotas on a slew of Chinese garments.

The US Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreement (CITA) said Wednesday it was extending a review of industry requests for quotas on four categories of Chinese garments -- blouses, skirts, pyjamas and swimwear.

The review on the four categories has been extended a week to November 8, said CITA, which also announced a fresh review to see whether shipments of Chinese towels should be subject to quotas.

But on a more positive note, Spooner said China had signed an agreement Tuesday to subject its US-bound exports of socks to a quota of just over 10 million dozen pairs.

The agreement gives the administration more time to analyse demands by US sock makers to impose tougher limits on the Chinese imports while it "works to conclude a broad textile agreement with China that would govern imports from 2006 to 2008," the official said.

"It would simply be unfair to our sock producers if -- in the midst of those negotiations -- we permitted a safeguard to lapse," he said.

The US textile industry wants a deal that limits imports in more than 19 Chinese categories to a 7.5-percent growth rate per year until 2008.

For its part, China wants to reduce the number of restricted items and wants limits to be lifted at the end of 2007, similar to an agreement it has already reached with the European Union.

Previous rounds of Sino-US talks on the textiles question have failed to make much headway. The last session, held in Beijing in mid-October, broke up after what one Chinese press report described as "heated negotiations".

In the absence of an overarching agreement, the US Commerce Department has been resorting to temporary safeguards to curb Chinese imports, to the anger of Beijing.

Chinadaily.com.cn