The Hindu Business Line : ITCB deplores lack of effective liberalisation

THE International Textiles and Clothing Bureau (ITCB) has voiced serious concern over the failure of the developed countries to demonstrate their full commitment to the objective of "effective liberalisation of trade in textiles and clothing sector with only one and a half year left for the scheduled end of all quota restrictions and the re-integration of textiles and clothing into normal GATT rules."

Official sources told Business Line here that at its just-ended Cairo Conference of the ITCB's Council of Representatives, it was pointed out with regret that the WTO Council for Trade in Goods and the General Council had been kept from fulfilling the mandate of the Doha Ministerial Decision on Implementation-Related issues and concerns in regard to the method for calculating quota growth rates under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC).

The sources said that the ITCB representatives also noted with "great concern" the reported plans to enlarge the scope of quota restrictions as part of European Union (EU) enlargement from May 2004, especially as barely eight months would be left before the complete dismantling of all quota restrictions.

While noting the reduction in market access possibilities on account of denial of the carry-forward facility in the last year of the ATC, the ITCB representatives underlined that permitting the continued use of carry-forward in 2004 would be one way of demonstrating their commitment to real liberalisation in the sector. Though this could only be modest and delayed it would still be "a positive signal and could go someway towards allowing for continuous adjustment in their markets and mitigating the shock of back-loaded liberalisation at the end of the transitional period."

The ITCB representative recalled that attention in the Uruguay Round remained riveted on the long-standing problem of quota restrictions. Besides, the modalities chosen for tariff reductions in that round enabled the major developed countries to justify much lower reductions in textiles and clothing by higher reductions in other industrial products. Consequently, the sources said, the textiles and clothing products that are of particular export interest to developing countries and least developed countries remained subject to significant tariff peaks and escalation. Hence the Cairo Communiqué of the ITCB emphatically stated that if "Doha Work Programme was to measure up to its billing as a development agenda and fulfil its promise to developing economies and least developed countries, the modalities for tariff reductions shall need to ensure that the Uruguay Round experience is not repeated and tariff cuts in the sector are indeed substantial."

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