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Sino-US textile deal still possible: Portman

Reuters, Washington
The United States still hopes it can reach an agreement that would regulate booming clothing and textile imports from China but is disappointed Beijing rejected a “very generous proposal” this week, the chief US negotiator said on Friday.
US Trade Representative Rob
Portman said the remaining differences, “with one exception which I'm not going to tell you about because we're still negotiating it,” were not significant. “I would say we're very close,” he said.
US and Chinese negotiators failed to reach an agreement in a fourth round of talks on Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing. US industry groups had high
hopes for a deal after the two sides made good progress in the previous round.
China's clothing and textile exports to the United States jumped 54 percent in the first eight months of 2005 to $17.7 billion. The surge followed the end of a global textile quota system on Jan. 1 as the result of a 1994 world trade deal.
“We had a very generous proposal for the Chinese but it was not generous enough for them,” Portman told reporters. “Frankly, I'm disappointed. I was ready and willing to fly the 22 hours to Beijing, and the 22 hours back, in order to finalize” a deal.
Portman said he remained “forever hopeful” the two sides could strike a deal. A second US trade official who spoke on condition he not be identified, said the two sides had not discussed dates for a fifth round of talks.
The United States already has curbed imports of Chinese-made shirts,trousers, bras, underwear, yarn and other textile and clothing products under a special “safeguards” provision of Beijing's entry into the WTO in 2001.
The measure allows member countries to cap the growth in China's textile and clothing shipments at 7.5 percent when there is a market-disrupting surge.
The United States wants China to
negotiate a comprehensive agreement governing clothing and textile trade until the end of 2008, when the safeguard measure expires, in order to provide more predictability for industry on both sides.
The main sticking point this week was Beijing's demand that new quotas increase 20 percent in 2007 and 30 percent in 2008, industry officials said. The United States offered 12.5 percent growth in 2007 and 14 percent in 2008, they said.
“China was proposing growth rates which we just couldn't justify to our domestic stakeholders, and China wouldn't budge,” the second US official said, without revealing precise details of what the two sides proposed. “I'm disappointed. I think China really missed an opportunity here.”