India Appeals To WTO For Importing Cotton Yarn In Turkey

In March 11, 2009, documents released by the official website of WTO showed that India had resorted to WTO in its second major textile export market, Turkey's safeguard measures against imported cotton yarn.

When India asked for negotiations with Turkey on this dispute, it was time for countries around the world to take measures to protect their exporters and domestic industries in response to the global economic slowdown.

At the same time, the dispute shows that textiles that are in fierce competition in developing countries have always been the source of the tension between rich and poor countries, because cheap imports from Asia are threatening the clothing manufacturers of the United States and the European Union.

Of course, the rules of international trade allow temporary tariff measures to be taken by countries that are hit by surging imports, and strive for time to adjust their domestic industries.

However, they must consider the exporters affected by the measures and strive to maintain levels of substantially equal concession or other obligations, including the provision of appropriate trade compensation.

Turkey, as the main cotton producer, began to apply safeguard measures in the summer of 2008 after a record breaking import growth rate of cotton yarn in 2005.

According to documents provided by Turkey, imports of cotton yarn in Turkey increased by 63.6% in 2005, 46.9% in 2006, 119.7% in 2007, and 32.1% in the first 5 months of 2008.

Despite the increase in cotton consumption in the same period in Turkey, the employment rate and domestic output of the industry showed a downward trend, while the market share of imported cotton yarn increased from 2.8% in 2004 to 12.5% in 2007.

In this regard, Turkey has imposed a temporary import tariff on imported cotton yarn for a period of 3 years.

At that time, Turkey gave up temporary import tariffs on developing countries with smaller supply of cotton yarn, but India was one of its largest suppliers.

In January 2009, Egypt, another major textile producer, implemented similar measures.

As Egypt's fifth largest textile export market in India, India also expressed concern about the Egyptian measure.

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