The textile industry of China repeatedly encountered barriers set by the US and Europe last year (2005) during the transition period after the textile quota was abolished. As a result, China's export policy saw big fluctuations and its textile and apparel export growth slowed down from the third quarter of 2005. However, textile and apparel exports of the whole year still set a new record of more than US$100 billion.

It was learnt from China National Textile & Apparel Council that last year, China's textile and apparel import and export added up to US$134.63 billion, up 17.9% over that of 2004 and constituting around 9.5% of China's overall foreign trade value. During this period, China's textile and apparel export value totaled US$117.535 billion, rising about 20.7% over the previous year and accounting for 15.4% of China's overall export value.

It should be noted that affected by RMB appreciation, price hike of raw materials and energy transport tension, especially the emerging effect of the US and Europe's restrictions on many China-made textile products, China's textile and apparel exports began to shrink in the third quarter of 2005.

The US, Japan and Hong Kong were in turn the top three textile and apparel importers of mainland China, while Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were in turn the three largest source countries of imported textile products.