On September 12, the European Commission adopted a regulation providing the legal grounds for Member States to begin issuing import licenses to Chinese exports currently blocked from entering the European Union. The regulation will come into force on September 14, when Member states will have the legal grounds to issue import licences to the relevant products.

The regulation has allowed import levels to be modified to provide sufficient amounts to enable the import of all the blocked quantities (estimated at 87 million pieces). Half of this amount will be unblocked through flexibilities agreed with China i.e. the transfer of agreed quantities from 2006 into 2005 in categories 6 (trousers) and 31 (brassieres) to clear the pending goods, as well as partially (up to 5% of the 2006 level) for category 5 (pullovers).

The other half of the quantities needed are being provided by a unilateral increase of the import levels on the European side through the provision of additional quantities.

In order to avoid any possible blockages this year a number of measures have also been agreed. Additional quantities, provided by the EU, have been rounded up in order to have an extra security margin, and flexibility provisions allowing 5% of advance use, 7% of carry over from previous years, and 4% of inter-category transfer among certain product categories.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said, I am pleased that the EU and China have been able to resolve this problem with the implementation of the Textiles Agreement in a way that preserves it without unfairly penalising retailers and importers.”