Senators oppose quotas on VN imports
HA NOI (April 11, 2003) — Twenty three US senators have petitioned their Trade Representative Robert Zoellick not to impose quotas on Vietnamese garment and textile imports through a bilateral textile restraint agreement, a Viet Nam Ministry of Trade source said yesterday.
They said in a letter to him that garment imports from Viet Nam do not threaten the American market or jobs in the US garment industry. Nor do imports from Viet Nam affect supplies from Western markets where the US has vested rights in preferential trade programmes, they pointed out.
The senators said restricting Vietnamese garment imports will affect the interests of American businesses, particularly importers and retailers. It will also impact other industries with good relations with Viet Nam, like aviation, consumer goods, insurance, finance, industry and IT, they warned.
They argued that liberalising Vietnamese garment imports would be necessary as an important garment product supply source at a time when supplies from certain regions have been unstable, and demand high in the US.
This will only benefit American consumers, they said.
In late March, chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Richard Lugar had written to Zoellick urging him to "give full consideration to the impact of quotas on American consumers."
Lugar said studies estimate that US tariffs and quotas on import of textiles and apparels cost American consumers over US$20 billion each year.
"Under the US quota phaseout proposal to the WTO, the US will continue to maintain nearly 900 quotas for 40 countries up to January 1, 2005, the deadline for the elimination of textile quotas" said Lugar.
"Currently the US has a safety valve against the adverse impact of quotas on consumers because it allows importers to borrow against future years’ quotas.
"However the elimination of textile quotas in 2005 may create shortages of products available to meet consumer demand in 2004," Lugar wrote.
Many US companies are developing production in Viet Nam as a means to maintain sufficient production levels in 2004, he added. — VNS
