Brussels, 23/08/2005 (Agence Europe) - With six of the 10 categories of textiles products on which quotas were applied by the Shanghai agreement of last June having already reached their import limits (see EUROPE 8967), the meeting of the Textiles Committee of the EU, which is made up of experts from the Member States, which was initially planned for Thursday (see EUROPE 9010), will be replaced by an informal meeting this Wednesday between experts of the Commission and of the Member States, to concentrate on the dossier of Chinese textiles which are being held in customs, in order to look at the options open to the Union on this issue, a source close to the dossier within the Cabinet of Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told EUROPE. "There will be an informal exchange of views before the mission to China" this Thursday by experts from DG Trade of the Commission, who are to meet their opposite numbers from the Chinese Ministry of Trade to discuss solutions to be applied to the problem of the Chinese goods which are held up on the doorstep of the Community market, this source added. Several thousand containers of products ordered and, in many cases, already paid for, are effectively being held up in European ports such as Le Havre and Antwerp. On Monday, the Commission confirmed that T-shirts, bras and linen fabrics have now been added to jumpers, trousers and blouses, which reached their import quotas for 2005 (from 11 June to 31 December) sometime between mid-July and mid-August, which were set at 68.9 million, 104.05 million and 24.7 million items respectively. According to figures quoted on Tuesday by the French Ministry of Trade, some 58.6 million jumpers, 16.5 million pairs of men's trousers and over 272,200 blouses from China were seized in European ports on 20 August. It is worth noting that this situation has led Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark to call upon Brussels to relax restrictions and increase the limits (EUROPE 9008). One solution which is being looked at by the experts is to transfer a proportion of the authorised quotas for 2006 to 2005, in order to avoid blockages of full cargoes of Chinese textile products on the borders of the Union.