History Of The Textile And Apparel Industry

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According to “Going Global: The Textile and Apparel Industry” by Grace Kunz and Myrna Garner (2011) , “China, the country with the greatest population in the world, is now the largest trading nation in the world, followed by the United States, Japan, and Germany” (p.339). China has a labor force of 812 million people with an unemployment rate of 4.3% and the total poluation for China is around 1.3 billion people (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p. 344-345). In 2008, China’s textile exports equaled over 65 million in US dollars compared to textile imports of a little over 16 million (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p.348-349). Also in 2008 the apparel exports in China equaled little under 120 million in US dollars compared to a little over two million in imports …show more content…
China first evidence of textile production of domesticated silkworm around 5000 to 3000 BC (Biselli, 2011, p.2). Ever since then China has always played a big part in textile and apparel industry. The modern textile and apparel industry that we see today was started in the 1870s by Chen Qi Yuan with the first textile factory in China. (Qui, 2005, p.3). According to Qui (2005), from 1870s to 1949 the textile industry was slow building due to wars and society not stable (p.3). During the late 1800s to the late 1970s, China had taken a step back from trade with most of the world until Nixon reopened that communication (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p.355). During that time in the 1950s the Chinese focused on increasing domestic textile and apparel with cotton plants established and in the 60s they started synthetic fiber industries (Qui, 2005, p.3). China slowly progressed into a modernized textile and apparel industry between 1870 to the 1980s. China had an economic reform and open door policy starting in 1979 that allowed foreign companies to come in and set up factories (Qui, 2005, p. 3-4). Due to China being closed off for so long from other nations once they became an open door policy you started to see a change in the country especially development into a world leader of …show more content…
69). The quota system limited the amount of products entering a country (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p.35). This agreement was started to protect domestic production however production was still being moved to newly developing countries with low cost labor. (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p. 347). China had to adhere to this agreement just like any other country during this time which was from 1974 to 2005. The quota system caused some serious problems for China because the quota limit for them to export was low compared to how much they could export (Martin, 2011, p. 304). During the MFA, GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) which developed the MFA was replaced by the World Trade Organization which followed 7 years of trade negotiations by the GATT called the Uruguay Round (Kunz & Garner, 2011, p. 189). The Uruguay Round allowed quotas to be gradually eliminated through four stages which were called the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) (Lu, 2012, p.4). In 2001, China did not become a member of the World Trade Organization until 2001 which meant that China did not have influence on challenging decisions like the quota restrictions (Martin, 2011, p. 305). China was not really welcomed by a lot of

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