WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters): Chief executives from more than 100 U.S. textile companies mounted a major lobbying effort yesterday aimed at restricting imports from China when five-decade-old quotas expire at the end of the year. Allen Gant, chairman of the National Council of Textile Organizations, said the executives would meet with 48 members of Congress to ask for their help in persuading the Bush administration to take pre-emptive action against an expected surge in low-priced Chinese clothing and textile imports. "Unless the administration steps to the plate, over the next two years 75 per cent of the 702,000 U.S. textile and apparel workers, along with 30 million other workers around the world, will lose their jobs," Gant told reporters. The United States, European Union and Canada have phased out their textile import quotas under a world trade deal struck in 1994. Despite the long run up to totally eliminating quotas, textile groups say the situation changed dramatically when Beijing joined the WTO in late 2001 and rich countries began phasing out quotas on imports from China as well. The Bush administration has already slapped temporary "safeguard" restrictions on imports of bras, dressing gowns and knit fabrics from China in response to a surge.
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