China said it "strongly objected" to new measures taken by the European Union against imports of Chinese textiles, calling the move a potential blow to global trade in textiles.

"This departs from the spirit of free trade proposed by Europe and seriously violates the basic principles of the World Trade Organization," commerce ministry spokesman Chong Quan said in a statement on the ministry's website.

The European Union Wednesday unveiled "alert levels" to consider limiting Chinese clothing imports but did not bow to pressure from the European textile industry to take more drastic action to hold back Chinese textile imports.

"This will have a negative impact not just on Sino-European textile trade, but on global textile trade as a whole," Chong said in the statement.

Chong said that China and the European Union each have "complementary strengths" in the textile field, and that "common interests do exist in the industry.

"Any action that prevents the integration of the textile industry will cause damage to the common interests of China and the EU," he said.

"The two sides should seek to solve the problems they face through strengthened dialogue and cooperation," he said.

According to the measures unveiled by the European Union Wednesday, if textile imports from China reach the "alert levels" it could trigger an investigation to determine if so-called "safeguards" are needed.

However, the action plan does not take the European Union, which is trying to build up strong commercial relations with China, as far and as fast down the road to safeguards as a US investigation into Chinese textiles, which has raised the ire of Beijing.

Instead of jumping to the investigation stage, the European Union chose to set "alert levels" on different types of Chinese textiles.

On January 1, a 31-year-old international textile import quota system expired, leaving producers in developed and developing countries bracing for a wave of imports from China, whose manufacturers benefit from cheap labor and huge economies of scale.

(China Daily April 7, 2005)