CHINA TAKES SERIOUS VIEW OF MFA EXTENSION
China took a serious view of a Multi-Fibre
Agreement (MFA) protocol which it said infringed principles of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the People's
Daily overseas edition said.
    It quoted a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Economic
Relations and Trade as saying the protocol, signed on July 31
last year and which extended the MFA for five years, would
affect international textile trade by broadening curbs in it.
    Fifty major textile trading countries adopted the new MFA
last July in Geneva, limiting Third World exports of textiles
to industrialised countries.
    The newspaper said China signed the protocol on May 31, 10
months after it was signed by other nations.
    A U.S. Diplomat said the U.S. And China had had months of
talks on the issue, with the U.S. Saying that it would have to
introduce unilateral restraints if China did not sign.
    He said that the new MFA pact extended controls to silk and
ramie in addition to existing ones on cotton and man-made
fibres.
    China, the world's biggest producer of ramie and a major
silk producer, had flooded the U.S. Market the previous two
years with goods made from both and from linen because these
three categories were not under quota, the diplomat said.
    It had become the biggest supplier by volume, though not by
value, of textiles to the U.S., With exports in the first five
months of this year up by 24 pct from the same 1986 period.
    He estimated total 1987 textile exports would be 15 pct up
on the 1986 level.
    Chinese customs figures show exports of textile yarn,
fabrics, made-up articles and related products to the U.S. In
calendar 1986 as being worth 1.314 billion yuan, up from 870
mln in 1985.
    The diplomat said China and the U.S. Had held two rounds of
talks on drawing up a new three to five-year textile pact, to
replace the present one, due to expire at the end of 1987.
    They involved discussion of overshipment of Chinese
textiles this year to the U.S. Due to counterfeit licences, a
problem the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade
admitted to last week, he said, but gave no more details.
 REUTER
