The Istanbul Declaration, an international private sector-led lobby seeking to delay the phaseout of garments quotas by three years, is not likely to get the approval of the World Trade Organization (WTO) given the body's multilateral setup, a government official said last week.
Serafin Juliano, executive director of the Garments and Textile Export Board (GTEB), said this was a projection coming from a private sector group monitoring the situation.
"There are few chances to get any delay," he quoted the private sector report as saying. "As a background, the phasing out of the quota was decided 10 years ago as part of the agreement on textile and clothing. Any change would require a global negotiation between 147 WTO member countries."
He noted that "under the agreed rules," both the Apparel and Textile Council, a WTO body, and the whole WTO itself would need to have a consensus following "extensive negotiations" among all 147 member countries.
The Istanbul Declaration, initiated by United States textile firms and backed by those in Europe, already has the support of 71 trade associations from 38 countries, including those from Africa and Latin America. The Philippine signatory is the Confederation of Garments Exporters of the Philippines (ConGEP) led by businessman Donald G. Dee.
Signatories of the Istanbul Declaration want the WTO to convene an extraordinary meeting on July 1 to discuss the quota phaseout. They either want to extend the quota regime - which gives guaranteed access to lucrative markets such as the US and Europe - until 2008, or "to require the general use of the textile safeguard limiting imports from China." The lobby group fears China will gobble up two-thirds of global garments trade when a quota-less regime begins on Jan. 1, 2005.
Signatories will meet in Brussels, Belgium by the middle of the month to try to force governments to support the postponement of the quota phaseout.
Mr. Juliano noted that not a single government has supported the Istanbul Declaration. In fact, India, Pakistan, and, as expected, China are strongly opposed to it, he added.
He also cited the fact that in not all trade associations in Bangladesh signed. "What this simply means is though the numbers are an indication of increasing signatories, it is not unilateral, it is not unanimous. [The support is not] solid in each country."
There is also no consensus as yet in the Philippines, he said. Because of this, the government has not yet firmed up a position, the GTEB chief explained.
"This is a private sector situation which becomes important to government in the sense that it must reflect broad consensus, which is not yet reflecting now," Mr. Juliano said.
Other industry associations which sit on the GTEB's advisory council are the Foreign Buyers Association of the Philippines, Garment Business Association of the Philippines, Textile Mills Association of the Philippines, and the Children's Apparel Association of the Philippines.
Mr. Juliano said the government must continue to uphold its free trade commitments under the WTO. "We will continue to work closely with the private sector to ascertain its position, while at the same time government must continue to uphold multilateral agreements we have under WTO and the processes that involve those agreements."
Mr. Juliano noted various "remedies" against cheap Chinese products under the WTO such as the imposition of safeguard, countervailing, and anti-dumping duties.BusinessWorld:
