41-Nation Textile Network

With Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and others, the EU is forming a 41-nation textile-making cluster free of tariffs aiming to create a single factory floor for tariff purposes. Bulgaria plans to join this network of low-cost factories in the south and east of EU countries as Europe tries to protect its own textile industry against Asian competition.  

Fabrics made in the EU are turned into clothes across the Mediterranean and sold back to the EU duty-free, securing jobs on both sides of the Mediterranean. That turns out to be an effective way to make the region more competitive against China.  

Chinese clothing had been trapped on Europe's docks this summer in the latest dispute over quotas re-imposed on China. Such quotas are scheduled to disappear by 2008. But due to the lengthy dispute over the trapped goods, textile buyers are intensifying their efforts to avoid becoming too reliant on Chinese suppliers. 

The 'Pan EuroMed' partnership, planned in 2003 by trade ministers qualifies all the countries involved for tariff exemptions. The EU stated that the partnership agreement will be signed soon and will bring down costs by about 5%.

Meanwhile, the countries involved are already increasing their production ties under existing free-trade agreements.

The Mediterranean countries' textile exports to the EU have been rising steadily, and last year outstripped China's textile exports to the EU, which now is in danger of being eclipsed. 

Turkish knitters, for instance, already import much of their yarn from Italy. Cotton-blend weavers in Portugal, Italy and Spain are expecting orders to come as contracts for dresses and trousers take place in Morocco and Tunisia in the wake of the re-imposed Chinese quotas.

Low-wage workers there and in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Tunisia transform the material into clothes, sew on buttons and package the goods, before selling most of them back to the EU.

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