6:21 AM Jan 19, 1994

TEXTILE FOCUS NOW ON INDIA

Geneva 18 Jan (TWN) -- With China and Pakistan having buckled to the US pressures and signed bilateral accords under the Multifibre Agreement (MFA), both virtually freezing exports at current levels and agreeing to incorporate a socalled anti-circumvention clause, focus has now shifted to the US-India talks in New Delhi, where the government is already facing domestic criticism for accepting the Uruguay Round agreements without gaining anything over the next several years on textiles and clothing.

The Uruguay Round agreement on textiles and clothing provides for a 10-year transition and phaseout of all MFA quota restrictions, but its speed and integration would be related to the existing quotas.

The US is trying to keep the imports at current levels, so that there will be little or no integration or growth on restricted categories until six or seven years into the transition.

The US-China bilateral accord is reported also to include silk textiles and clothing which so far has not been included in any of the bilateral agreements and has been an unrestrained product.

By restraining existing export levels, and bringing in all products not so far subject to restraints, the importing countries would be able to keep most of the restrictions on sensitive and very sensitive products until almost the very end.

The Uruguay Round accord also has provisions against circumvention -- exporters shipping their products via third countries to escape the quota restrictions.

In such cases, there is provision for consultations and actions, including by the importing country denying entry to goods entering through circumvention (transshipment, rerouting, false declaration of country or place of origin and falsification of documents), or adjustment of charges (the quotas) to reflect the true country of origin. These will be subject to monitoring and decisions by the Textile Monitoring Body to be set up under the accords, and in the final analysis to the WTO's Dispute Settlement process.

But in the case of China and Pakistan, the US would appear to have won their agreement not only to include an anti-circumvention provision in the bilateral accords under the MFA, but allow for US unilateral decision and imposition of socalled 'triple damages'.

If the US determines that an exporter in a country has circumvented the quotas by shipping for e.g. 10,000 units of a product via third country, with false labels of origin or by transhipment, the US will be empowered to reduce the quota of the country concerned in that product by 30,000 units.

The US is also pressuring India to agree to virtual zero-growth under a bilateral accord and with anti-circumvention clauses with unilateral decision-making by the US.