Is the Chinese Textile Industry a Threat for Europe?

Is Chinese Textile Industry a threat for Europe?

Introduction

“Napoleon said of China “Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.” This assumption turned out to be true, particularly these two last decades. As a matter of fact, China has undergone two restructuring processes: the industrialization and the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy since the early 1980’s. Thus, Chinese government has been implementing an economic reform to reinforce its rapid growth. China is now awake and is already a major actor of the world economy, widely open to the world. It has reduced its trade barriers and has managed to attract huge foreign direct investments thanks to which China could improve its competitiveness.

There is a particular area in which China has become a leader: the textile industry. After the end of the Multifibre Arrangement, China’s textile exports rose astonishingly. China's share of the US$350 billion global textile market is expected to rise from its current 20 percent to a maximum