ISDS Case Map
textiles | garments
The United States is reluctant to give increased market access for textile to Pakistan and has conveyed that any new trading arrangement that could be finalized between the two countries would be minus textile, a senior official told the Daily Times on Saturday.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has warned government that thousands of textile workers, especially women, will soon join the unemployment queue.
The CARICOM bloc already enjoys preferential access to the US market through the Caribbean Basin Initiative. But key textile concessions are set to expire in 2008, and the region has been losing ground to competitors in Central and South America as those countries sign free trade deals with Washington.
'A free trade agreement with China will be suicidal,' Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said Monday.
The Philippine exploratory mission to the US on the proposed specific preferential trading for the garment sector was met with cold treatment as top level government officials, Congress representatives and its private sector still prefer a comprehensive free trade area (FTA) agreement.
South Korea should call on the United States to remove protection for its shipping industry and lower tariffs on textile and clothing imports in order to counter Washington's demands at the upcoming free trade talks, a state-run think tank said Thursday.
The chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), Punjab zone, Shafqat Elahi, has welcomed the ratification of SAFTA by the cabinet.
The delay in implementing the Central American Free Trade Agreement has hit the region's clothing industry hard, putting factories in legal limbo while much of their business leaves for Asia.
Fiji's garment industry will face more problems if a free trade agreement (FTA) is signed between Australia and China, says Fiji Textile Clothing and Footwear President, Ramesh Solanki.
Since China and the ASEAN started their tariff reduction process on July 1, 2005 on the basis of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) agreement, the ASEAN would gradually lower its tariff upon Chinese textile and apparel, which may increase China's textile export to this region.
