The EU Market for apparel exports, China's cotton imports, and the end of the ATC

Abstract

Abstract The expiration of the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in January 2005 coincided with surges of China's apparel exports and apparent increases in China's cotton imports, the former of which has led to trade conflicts between China and its main trading partners, and the latter of which has seemingly prompted China to relax its restrictions on cotton imports. Using monthly trade data, this study employs a vector autoregression model to investigate the interlinkages between China's and its competitors’ apparel exports to the EU and between China's apparel exports and its cotton imports. Our analysis shows that (1) there appears to be a downward-sloping and elastic demand curve for China's apparel products by the EU; (2) China's and its competitors’ apparel exports to the EU are imperfect substitutes and the “crowding out” effects of Chinese apparel exports seem to be modest in the EU market; (3) the interrelationship between China's apparel exports and its demand for imported cotton is f...