US, Chinese officials seek deal to settle textiles row

Senior US and Chinese officials bid on Tuesday to forge a comprehensive deal to regulate surging Chinese textile exports, which have exacerbated acute Sino-US trade tensions in recent months.

Trade officials from the two sides met at a San Francisco hotel for what was previously billed as a routine encounter to address US quotas slapped on a range of Chinese textile imports.

But the two-day meeting has been expanded as the US seeks to emulate a deal reached by the EU with China in June that averted a potential trade war over textiles.

David Spooner, the special negotiator for textiles in the US Trade Representative's office, led a nine-member team opposite a 13-strong Chinese delegation headed by Sun Jiwen, deputy director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade.

Spooner said progress had been made, but not enough to guarantee a pact by the scheduled end of talks last night.

"I don't know if we will conclude an agreement but the tenor was very good," he told reporters.

He declined to detail specifics of the talks, but said both sides were trying to ease a "climate of uncertainty" among US manufacturers, importers and retailers, as well as Chinese exporters.

The two delegations broke up in the afternoon but were expected to hold informal contacts over dinner, officials said.

While the USTR's firm intention is to negotiate a "broad textile agreement," China has warned that the talks are likely to be hard-fought.

"Compared with the limited products involved in the Sino-EU talks, negotiations between China and the US will be tough," Sun Huaibin (孫淮濱), spokesman for the China National Textile Apparel Council, said on Sunday.

China and the EU eased their tensions when they agreed to limit the growth of 10 Chinese textile products to the EU to between 8.5 and 12.5 percent until the end of 2007.

Washington has acted unilaterally in imposing quotas on seven Chinese textile products, and is considering introducing limits on another five. That has infuriated Beijing, which has also been challenged by the US administration on a range of other trade disputes including currency reform and protection of US goods from counterfeit rivals.