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United States of America: Good news for hosiery industry |
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2004-7-26
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It was good news for approximately 6,000 workers in DeKalb County and 150 mills belonging to the United State hosiery industry, as they heard the news of tariffs likely to be applied on socks imported from China.
The Commerce Department announced yesterday that the inter-agency Committee on Implementation of Textile Agreements, CITA, accepted the safeguard petition of the USA domestic sock manufacturers to establish a quota limit on the import of cotton, wool and man-made socks from China.
The petition would be posted in the Federal Register and on the US Commerce website. Now begins a 30-day period when public comment is invited. After that, CITA will have 60 days to make its decision whether to agree with the petition request and formally request consultations with the Chinese to establish the new quota on sock imports from China. The industry is seeking the same remedy as brassieres, nightgowns and knit fabrics: quotas to limit to 7.5 percent growth the level of shipments over the prior year.
Charles Cole, owner of Alabama Footwear, Inc., and past president of The Hosiery Association, from his industry, received the Wednesday news about the decision by the Committee for Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) to accept a ‘safeguard petition’.
“This is the first plateau for getting some relief,” Cole said, “and I feel very good about that. I had confidence they would accept our petition. We’ve been working on it for almost a year to know what to put into it.”
For Fort Payne, ‘the sock capital of the world’ it will be ‘sweet news after a long time.’
Although the petition did seek specific quota requests, if it is approved — and takes effect in January 2005, Chinese sock imports would be limited to a 7.5 percent increase over imports in 2004.
U.S. Senator Richard Shelby applauded the decision.
“I am pleased the committee has accepted this petition,” Shelby said. “The sock industry in northeast Alabama has seen substantial damage as a result of unprecedented surges of imported socks. A vibrant sock industry is critical to many of our communities in Northeast Alabama, and if we continue to allow foreign socks to overrun the domestic market, it will cause irreparable harm.”
Shelby said urgent and significant action was required to save the domestic sock industry. He said U.S. sock manufacturing has suffered severe market disruption during the past two years as subsidized sock imports from China soared while U.S. production declined steadily.
Shelby said sock prices declined precipitously and sock plant closings multiplied at the same time.
China’s socks exports skyrocketed from less than 1 million dozen pair in 2001 to 22 million dozen pair in 2003.
China’s market share of the U.S. sock import market likewise ballooned from about 1 percent in 2001 to about 15 percent in 2003, and surged to 221 percent in the first quarter this year. Simultaneously, the average market price of sock imports from China collapsed from $9 per dozen pair to $4.15 per dozen pair in 2003.
Meanwhile, in addition to this steep downward price pressure, U.S. domestic sock production declined from 207 million dozen pair in 2001 to 166 million dozen pair in 2003. U.S. market share for domestic producers fell from 64 percent in 2001 to 43.6 percent in 2003 and U.S. domestic sock production declined from 19,300 in 2001 to 16,000 in 2003. |
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