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Foreign textile equipment makers eye China
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-06 13:58

Mirco Rertocchi isn’t waiting to see the outcome of China’s tensions with the United States and Europe over surging textile exports.

He’s too busy selling Italian-made weaving looms to Chinese mills. About 1,300 firms from the United States, Europe, Japan and elsewhere were displaying looms, knitting machines and other technology at the International Exhibition on Textile Industry, hoping to cash in as the business booms in China.

While US and European textile producers complain that a flood of low-priced Chinese exports is ruining their business, equipment makers say the surge is creating new markets for their own goods.

Shangtex organizers say the number of exhibitors showing their wares in a sprawling space that covers seven aircraft hangar-size halls is 40 percent bigger than last year.

Panter had been selling about 1,800 looms a year in China, making up for a slump in business at home, he said.

Textiles helped ignite China’s export boom in the early 1980s, when Hong Kong clothing makers shifted production to the cheaper mainland.

Peter Cunningham, director of North Carolina’s Department of Commerce, said he believed quotas levied by the U.S. have bought time for the state, which has lost 175,000 textile-related jobs since 2000 and has 102,000 left.

But he said North Carolina was pursuing new business niches in China’s growing market.

He cited non-woven fabrics—an area where China lags behind—as one of many promising areas. Such fabrics are used in many industrial applications.



 
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