Chinese companies have to make sacrifice for the establishment of a new world textile trade order, the China Textile Industry Council said Friday, following a government decision to raise drastically the export tariffs on some export textile products.

Sun Huaibin, spokesman for the Council, told Xinhua that the Council could understand the decision of the government though Chinese companies have to "make sacrifice" for it.

"China's is a responsible country, and it is for the purpose of helping establish a new world textile trade order and ease the trade friction that the government made the concession," Sun said.

"But our companies would have to make sacrifice for such a new trade order," said Sun.

The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, China's cabinet, announced it would raise the export tariffs on 74 sorts of textile products, with a 400-percent hike for most of the products, beginning June 1, 2005.

The tariffs on these products were imposed from Jan. 1 this year.

Sun noted that the tariff hike would surely result in an increase of cost and decrease of profits for domestic companies. Some companies might sustain losses and textile workers might lose their jobs.

"This is what we don't want to see," said Sun.

According to the spokesman, the textile industry has a bearing on the life of tens of millions of low-income workers, and in Chinese factories, the average profit of a shirt is only 30-40 US cents.

Source: Xinhua