China : Guangdong accounts for 30% of garment exports in post-WTO

During the five years after China entered WTO, Guangdong textile and garment industries experienced a series of events, such as abolishment of global textile quotas, safeguard limits on Chinese textiles imposed by Europe and the United States, agreements on textile products reached between China and Europe and the United States, and other incidents.

Guangdong enterprises seized opportunities during this period to overcome unfavorable factors like the impact of trade frictions. And garment exports maintained a rapid growth rate.

According to Customs statistics, in 2006, Guangdong garment exports stood US $28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 78 percent, accounting for almost 30 percent of the national garment exports, a growth of 2.2 times over the year when China joined WTO in 2001.

Meanwhile in the five years, the growth of exports in general business doubled

Guangdong garment processing trade exports were higher than general trade from 2001 to 2004. But in 2005, general trade exports surpassed garment processing trade. Guangdong general trade exports in 2006 reached more than US $19 billion. Garment exports in general trade was 2.3 times over processing trade.

With the further liberalization of China's foreign trade operation, the enterprises actually engaged in garment exports have increased rapidly.

In 2001, garment exporters were only 4,800 in Guangdong, and in 2006 reached more than 13,000. While annual garment export value of most enterprises in Guangdong is under million US dollars, however, the number of the enterprises whose annual export value exceed US $100 million has increased from seven in 2001 to 13 in 2006, including two private enterprises, so competition among export enterprises is increasingly fierce.
Recently, Li Enheng, China's permanent deputy representative to the WTO, said in an exclusive interview, "In recent years, the trend of 'new protectionism' ideas have emerged in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries, their main purposes are to suit their own political and economic needs, to maintain their dominant positions in international competition. This new protectionism has caused a serious impact on China's foreign trade development."

Li Enheng said that in recent years, with the development of economic globalization and the gradual strengthening of the multilateral trading system, the roles of traditional trade protection measures such as tariffs, quotas, permits and other means have been greatly weakened.

Many members of the WTO, especially the developed members, therefore frequently have recourse to various trade protection measures, which on the surface do not directly conflict with international rules.

These measures often appears in the face of so-called promotion of "fair trade", which are necessary to protect human health, ecological environment and the interests of consumers.

The theoretical basis, policy measures, targets and implementation results have notable differences with traditional trade protectionism, thus being dubbed as "new protectionism", "new-mercantilism" or "economic nationalism" and other names.

Li Enheng said that developed members were the main initiators of "new protectionism".