The American Chamber of Commerce in China on Friday welcomed the Chinese government's decision to raise export tariffs significantly on a broad range of textiles, calling it a "constructive approach" toward resolving trade differences.

"We are encouraged by this move that the United States and China may be able to resolve other trade differences with a similar sense of fairness and moderation," Charlie Martin, president of the chamber, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"This voluntary step demonstrates that China is adopting a constructive approach and is sensitive to the very real hardships which the removal of quotas has brought for some American workers, " he said.

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

That means the tariffs on each piece of said export textile or clothing product would increase from 0.2 yuan (2.4 US cents) to 1 yuan (12 US cents). But the new export tariffs for women's cotton overcoat and mantle would be 4 yuan (48 US cents), compared with the current 0.3 yuan (3.6 US cents).

But Martin said the chamber "reserves further comment until we have examined in detail the impact of specific tariff increases on specific categories."

China announced the tariff hike in the wake of a United States decision on Wednesday to re-impose restrictions on seven kinds of China textile and clothing imports. The European Union is also pressuring China to take more strict measures to curb textile exports to the European market.

The Customs Tariff Commission also announced on Friday the imposition of export tariffs on flax yarn, the reduction of that on three varieties of briefs and shorts, and the abolition of that on knitted garment accessories.

China now imposes export tariffs between 2 percent and 4 percent on 148 categories of textile and clothing exports, including coats and skirts. The practice started on Jan. 1 as part of the government's efforts to prevent rapid influx of inexpensive Chinese-made textile and clothing to the American and European markets after global quotas were removed.

In a telephone interview with Xinhua Friday, China Textile Industry Council said it understands the decision of the government, though Chinese companies will have to make sacrifice for the establishment of a new world textile trade order.

"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," said the council's spokesman Sun Huaibin.

According to Sun, 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