Brussels, 20/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the Commissioner for Industry, Günter Verheugen, welcomed recommendations by the "Textile and Clothing" high-level group, which call on the European textiles and clothing sector to rationalise its structures and become more cooperative whilst increasing its competitiveness and turning more towards the export market.
First and foremost, the high-level group stresses the need to do more to support research and innovation activities. According to its conclusions, the "textiles and clothing" technological platform should seek to identify potential pilot projects, in line with the strategic agenda for research of last June. Another recommendation is to move away from mass production and towards specialised products. Within the framework of the LEAPFROG research project, furthermore, the high-level group hopes to see a technological breakthrough in the production of clothing articles and urges national industrial federations to do all in their power to promote standardisation, particularly in the field of ICT. In order to supply the European industry with a qualified labour force, the "textiles and clothing" high-level group calls upon industry and the social partners to speed up their efforts to implement its recommendations of June 2004 (a foundation of national and European observatories for training and employment, the coordination of training at all levels within industry, the creation of information pools on the sector, the drafting of joint qualification standards and the setting in place of European diplomas and university programmes, working hand-in-hand with the industry). On the commercial aspects, the group lays emphasis on the need for reciprocal access to the third country markets for Community exports of textile and clothing products and a strategy to achieve this. It also calls on the Mediterranean partners to complete the Euro-Mediterranean free-trade area. On the subject of intellectual property rights, it welcomes the Commission's reinforcement of its actions and reinforced dialogue with the Chinese authorities. Moving on to improved access to funding, the group support initiatives taken by the European industry to improve its image and regularly to present examples of success within the sector (such as the Fashion Forum, which came into being last spring). It also stresses the importance of greater cooperation between the industry and the retail trade in favour of a positive marketing approach, granting centre stage to consumer needs. Lastly, the group calls on those active in the sector to cooperate more: in particular, it calls upon SMEs to go beyond their supplier/client relationships to establish more organic links and to set up a greater business groups, with vital critical mass and credible business plans to present to credit institutions.