China and the US will start the fourth round of talks over the overheating textile disputes in Beijing on August 30 and 31, the Ministry of Commerce said Saturday.

It will be held just before the US government is due to make a decision on whether to impose new caps on additional Chinese textile products at the end of this month. The previous three rounds of Sino-US textile consultations failed to solve disputes between the two countries.

The ministry said in a statement following the third round of talks in San Francisco this month that the two sides had made certain progress, though fundamental differences still remain.

Concerns about the impact of inexpensive Chinese textile products have risen in the US textile industry since the decade-old quota regime in textile trade ended at the beginning of this year.

The tension was intensified when the US government launched unilateral safeguard measures on seven categories of Chinese textile and apparel products this spring. The US is also considering further action.

In another development, the EU and China continued talks in Beijing over the weekend concerning the stockpile of Chinese textile products at EU customs. The talks started on August 25.

Meanwhile, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said yesterday in Brussels he would make proposals to EU member states today to release millions of euros' worth of Chinese-made garments stuck in European ports, Reuters reported.

(China Daily August 29, 2005)