South African central bank governor Tito Mboweni warned on Friday that import quotas on Chinese textiles were illogical, make no economic sense and could backfire.

The governor told the National Assembly's finance committee in Cape Town that South Africa should be very pleased to have closely aligned itself with emerging economic powers, such as Brazil, India and China.

These countries were growing at very impressive levels, with China expecting economic growth at a "modest" 10 percent this year, India seven percent, and Brazil about five percent.

Therefore, he said, any notion of protectionism against one or the other of these countries was ill-advised.

South Africa announced that it will impose quotas on imports of clothing and textile from China beginning from January 1, 2007.

Mboweni noted, "There's a presumption that when people say we must stop buying goods from China by official decree, they are really saying China must stop buying from us by official decree; or Brazil must stop buying from us by official decree."

"This is illogical; it makes no economic sense whatsoever," he said. That was the threat of protectionism and it had to be avoided, he emphasized.

Mboweni said he also had difficulty in understanding the issue of quotas on Chinese textile imports. The belief that short-term protection would make the South African textile industry competitive was wrong. In any event, imposing quotas on China would not help, because this was simplifying the issue, the governor said.

Citing the example of Malaysia, Mboweni said that country dropped protectionism of its textile industry and trained people for its highly successful service sector instead.

"I'm just stating the cold facts," he said.

Source: Xinhua