Effective December 31, China will remove import tariffs from components of two types of textile machines—high-speed air-jet looms and automatic winders—in an attempt to encourage domestic textile firms to develop machinery of their own.

Commenting on the decision, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Commerce stated, "The long existing tax-free policies for imported textile machinery have undermined the competitiveness of domestically-produced machines."

China’s textile industry is being urged to improve its structure by upgrading technologies and developing more self-owned spinning and weaving machines in the eleventh five-year plan which runs until 2010.