The textile and apparel industry of the EU, represented by the European Apparel and Textile Organisation, EURATEX, has expressed its strong opposition to the latest non-agricultural market access (NAMA) text submitted to WTO members by the Group Chairman, Ambassador D. Stephenson, on 19th May 2008.
EURATEX considers that the implementation of the proposals contained in that text would represent a totally unbiased and unacceptable outcome to the Doha Development Agenda and demonstrate that the EU has made little effort over time to fulfil the terms of its own mandate adopted in December 2003.
This mandate would have required all WTO members, except the least developed, to reduce their textile and apparel tariffs to the lowest common level, and to eliminate non-tariff barriers.( ) Market access represents one of the highest priorities of the EU textile and apparel industry which exports close to 20% of its turnover, but this export effort is constantly hampered by high tariffs and a range of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on emerging markets of particular interest such as Brazil, India and China.
EURATEX Director-General Bill LAKIN noted that the Stephenson text, with its widely varying coefficients and flexibilities, would de facto set the WTO seal of approval on the combination of tariffs and NTBs which those nations used to prevent competition on their internal markets. This would mean that they emerge unscathed from the round, with the EU acting virtually as the sole banker for the DDA in textile and apparel terms.
EURATEX considers that the implementation of the proposals contained in that text would represent a totally unbiased and unacceptable outcome to the Doha Development Agenda and demonstrate that the EU has made little effort over time to fulfil the terms of its own mandate adopted in December 2003.
This mandate would have required all WTO members, except the least developed, to reduce their textile and apparel tariffs to the lowest common level, and to eliminate non-tariff barriers.( ) Market access represents one of the highest priorities of the EU textile and apparel industry which exports close to 20% of its turnover, but this export effort is constantly hampered by high tariffs and a range of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on emerging markets of particular interest such as Brazil, India and China.
EURATEX Director-General Bill LAKIN noted that the Stephenson text, with its widely varying coefficients and flexibilities, would de facto set the WTO seal of approval on the combination of tariffs and NTBs which those nations used to prevent competition on their internal markets. This would mean that they emerge unscathed from the round, with the EU acting virtually as the sole banker for the DDA in textile and apparel terms.
