Textiles Imports will Lead to Bloodbath

The head of a wool textile firm with an office in Bradford has called for curbs on cheap textile imports from China.

Laurence Modiano, head of G Modiano Ltd, which owns the world's largest wool combing plant in the Czech Republic, is calling for action to prevent a "bloodbath" among European textile firms.

He wants higher import duties and new quotas to be put on Chinese textiles, which in 2007 were 80 per cent of the total additional textile imports into the EU He has written to the EU Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton, and Günter Verheugen, Enterprise and Industry Commissioner, demanding action before EU textile processing disappears altogether.

Mr Modiano, whose firm has a woollen and worsted merchant's office in Sunbridge Road, accuses the EU of "short-sighted indifference" towards European textiles, an industry which he says is on its knees.

In the past 20 years the number of wool combing mills in Europe has fallen from more than 20 to six with the amount of fibre processed falling from 250 million kilos a year to 40 million kilos.

In 2006 European textile producers laid off 6.4 per cent of the industry's 2.5 million workers and Mr Modiano expected new figures to show a worsening picture.

He writes: "I do not have figures for 2007 and 2008 but I have no doubt that they will show a considerable acceleration of this trend – 2009 will be a bloodbath."

Mr Modiano, whose company owned the Bradford wool processing firm Heydemann Shaw which closed in 1998, says the rise of textile imports from outside the EU had caused irreversible damage to textile businesses.

He said: "While in principle I embrace free trade I feel that, left unchecked, it can have dire consequences."

He said the EU Commission was allowing the textile industry to perish while the Chinese government protected its commercial interests. Measures included an undervalued currency, generous and often non-repayable credit lines, tax holidays, subsidised land, freight, utility costs and export subsidies of up to 14 per cent.

Mr Modiano writes: "How many more textile companies must close before the EU Commission realises that Europe is no longer able to clothe itself?"

European textile producers have adapted geographically, with many moving from Western to Eastern Europe, ecologically by adopting recycling and other green practices and technically through the creation of new fibres, blends and processes.

Mr Modiano said the industry had deserved the right to operate internationally on a more level playing field.