Brussels, 12/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 12 September, the Commission adopted by written procedure the regulation aimed at implementing the agreement reached with the Chinese authorities by European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on 5 September in Beijing. The agreement reviews the Shanghai Memorandum of Understanding of 10 June this year for temporary restriction (until 2007) of Chinese textile products toward the Community market. The regulation provides the legal bases required for allowing Member States to issue import licences in order to unblock Chinese products held up at customs in European ports since the summer.
The regulation, which is to be published in the Official Journal on Tuesday and will take effect on Wednesday, provides for modifications to be made to the levels of Chinese textile imports to allow around 87 million garments blocked at the Union's borders to be unblocked. Half of this amount will be freed by a unilateral increase of import levels for 2005 on the European side via the provision of additional quantities, and China agrees to deduct the other half of the quota volumes foreseen for 2006 (mainly for trousers and bras) or to exchange it for unused 2005 quotas (cotton fabrics).
Furthermore, a number of measures have been taken to prevent this problem of goods being blocked occurring again this year: - the additional quantities provided by the EU have been rounded up in order to have an extra security margin; - a reserve of 2073 tonnes in cotton fabric category is foreseen in case the ceiling is reached in this category before the end of the year; - flexibility provisions have been introduced (also available in 2006 and 2007 for better management of the agreed levels) allowing 5% of advance use, 7% of carryover from previous years, and 4% of inter-category transfer among certain product categories; - and the deadline for importers to request the issue of import licences for goods shipped from China before 20 July has been extended until 20 September.
The Commission and the Chinese authorities remain in close contact and will set up a follow-up committee composed of representatives of the DG Trade at the Commission and the Chinese Ministry of Trade in order to ensure more flexible management of the revised Shanghai Memorandum of Understanding. (For further information: http: //europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/ 05/1124&format= HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr).