Archive

BY MARK ROWE
THE INDONESIA The Indonesian textile market is being hit hard by a black market in used garments made overseas, according to the Indonesian Textile Association. At least 480 million pieces of used garments are shipped into the country every year, from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United States and European countries, it said.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE MALAWI government is seeking a strategic equity partner for its largest textile plant, David Whitehead & Sons, which it owns the entity through its para-statal the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation. Peter Kaleso, the Malawian minister of commerce and industry said that his department had been engaged with local and foreign consultants to find a buyer.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union has hit out at developing countries trying to force a “rebalancing” of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing at the World Trade Organisation, claiming that commerce within the sector “should not be a one-way affair.”

Speaking at a WTO general council meeting, an EU delegate claimed that Brussels should not speed up its timetable abolish its quotas because so far, it had stuck to its ATC commitments.…

Keith Nuthall
COMPANIES and sole traders that alter and mend household linen, clothing and shoes have been granted the option of having another year of reducing VAT on their services by the European Commission. Brussels has decided to extend an experimental scheme, which allows Belgium, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Britain to reduce VAT on specified labour-intensive services to boost jobs.…

Keith Nuthall
FURTHER details have emerged about the US exported textile lines that could be saddled with protective duties of up to 100 per cent, because of the WTO ruling allowing Brussels to retaliate against the US’s use of foreign trade corporations to give exporters illegal tax breaks.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a list of exported American textile products that could be saddled with protective duties of up to 100 per cent, because of a World Trade Organisation ruling allowing Brussels to retaliate against the US’s use of foreign trade corporations to give its exporters illegal tax breaks.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to reimpose anti-dumping duties – albeit at a lower rate – against imports into the EU from Belarus of synthetic staple fibres of polyesters, not combed, carded or otherwise processed for spinning.

The move follows a review of the duties on polyester fibre from Belarus that were imposed in 1996 and 1997 at a rate of 43.5 per cent.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that the chemicals nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylate should be banned, either as a substance, or in preparations of 0.1 per cent and 1 per cent respectively when used for a wide range of textile processing.…

BY MARK ROWE
ILLEGAL migrant workers working in slave-like conditions for just US1$ a month in a garmant factory in Thailand have won compensation worth a total of US$53,000. The 30 ethnic Karen women, many aged under 18, worked at the Bang Bon factory from 7am to 9pm without any holiday.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a list of exported American wool products that could be saddled with protective duties of up to 100 per cent, because of a World Trade Organisation ruling allowing Brussels to retaliate against the US’s use of foreign trade corporations to give its exporters illegal tax breaks.…