Blouses coming into the European Union (EU) from China became the latest category of clothing to exceed agreed quota allowances between the two trade partners last night, piling more pressure on the European Commission to resolve the escalating crisis over blocked imports.
Data from the EU showed blouses hitting the quota limit, with the stockpile last night at nearly 55,000 items.
Bras and T-shirts look set also to exceed limits by the end of the week, with the former hitting 98.4 per cent of the import allowance, and the latter nudging up to 98.1 per cent.
This means five of the 10 categories covered by the China-EU textiles agreement signed in June are likely to exceed quota agreements. China has already breached its 2005 quotas for pullovers and men's trousers, leaving a stockpile of 58 million pullovers and 15 million trousers.
Retailing bodies yesterday complained that the quota limits - set in June - were unrealistic and urged the Commission to take immediate action.
"The amount of orders put in shows that they got the level of demand for Chinese textiles completely wrong," said Alisdair Gray, director of the British Retail Consortium in Brussels. "Retailers with orders of products such as bras for October/November will have to cancel them right now."
EuroCommerce, an association of retailers and wholesalers, is convening an emergency meeting with retailers across the EU next week to discuss the crisis.
"We hope that next week a solution will be found and the solution must allow at least for European retailers to import what is waiting at the borders. They need to bring products from stock to shelves in the first week of September," said Ralph Kamphner, senior adviser on trade at EuroCommerce.
This week ministers from the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland jointly warned that retailing problems caused by curbs on Chinese textiles exports would not only hurt consumers but also lead to job losses. They argued the quotas were introduced "without proper regard for the realities of modern commerce".
Germany warned this week that the quotas threatened to cause "major damage to trade".
