The Environment And Countermeasure Of Chinese Textiles And Apparel Export Industry After ATC's Implementation

In the twenty years from last century's mid 70s to 1994, the year the Uruguay Round reached its final accord, the world textiles trading system was structured under the framework of Multiple Fiber Agreement. Through the Agreement's importing quota, annual growth rate, clearance arrangement and other methods, the developed countries' industry and market pressures imposed by imports from low cost countries and area were effectively controlled. In December 1994, the GATT Uruguay round finally achieved its final goals. As one of the Round's important achievements, the ATC (Agreement of Textiles and Clothing) was established. The ATC set up a timetable to phase out the old International Textiles Trading System, which was characterized by the MFA's volume quota. According to the new ATC rules, the textiles and apparel products will take four steps in 10 years to phase into GATT. That means, the quota systems dictated by MFA and ATC will be eventually cancelled by December 31, 2004, and the importing nations can no longer discriminate the exporting nations in textiles trade. But China was excluded out of this world textiles trade liberalization process because she was not accepted by WTO as a member yet. In November 10, 2001, China successfully joined WTO as a full member and thus ended the exclusion of China's participation in the world textiles trading liberalization process. This paper discussed the ATC's impacts to world textiles trading and the changing marketplace. The author also suggested how to meet the challenges incurring from those impacts.