National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) informed that Suleyman Orakcioglu, Chairman of the Turkish textile and apparel trade group, ITKIB, warned WTO negotiators to move carefully in giving blanket Least Developed Countries (LDC) zero duty, zero quota access to countries that already have large and export competitive textile and apparel sectors:
Orakcioglu said, “The proposals to grant special access for certain countries that already have large developed textile sectors could backfire by harming the economies of key developing countries such as Turkey."
It is critical that the WTO not adopt policies which favor one group of countries over another without understanding the ramifications that this could have on important sectors in developing countries.
Orakcioglu noted, “The LDC quota-free, duty-free initiative, unless carefully constructed, could cause substantial loss of Turkish jobs and exports to both the US and EU markets. This would also represent a back-door gift to China because China would export subsidized fabrics to countries like Bangladesh which would use them to displace large amounts of Turkish clothing exports.”
Turkey is one of the world's largest apparel exporters with over two million workers employed in its textile and apparel sector. Exports of Turkish garments to the United States were nearly one billion dollars last year but have fallen by 16% so far this year. Exports of apparel from Bangladesh to theU.S. have increased 22 percent during the past year.
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