April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Three years ago, the textile plant Freddy Romero Ramirez runs in Bogota exported 234,575 meters of fabric for suit linings, enough for about 156,000 suits. This year, facing stronger competition from Chinese companies, he'll sell less than 3 percent of that amount abroad.
``There is no way local industry can survive the force of Chinese trade unless similar forceful measures are taken by the government,'' Romero, 45, chief executive officer of Textiles Romanos SA, said in an interview at the factory.
China's emergence as a world trade powerhouse, blamed in the U.S. and Western Europe for the loss of thousands of factory jobs, is having an even more severe impact on developing nations. Support for free trade is dwindling as industry groups in countries around the globe lobby for protection against Chinese competition.
Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs with the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, calls fear of Chinese competition ``one of the most important impediments'' to a new world trade agreement in the current Doha round of negotiations.
Much of the impact comes from China's textile exports, which accounted for about 70 percent of its record $177.5 billion trade surplus last year, according to Chinese Textile Industry Association Chairman Du Yuchuan.
Turkish Textiles
Turkey's textile companies shed about 10 percent of their workforce in 2005 and 2006 in the face of Chinese competition. While a sales-tax cut and a weaker lira have helped them recover, ``competition from the Far East still means that it's only the large companies with strong brands that are comfortable,'' says Yusuf Benli, head of the textile department of the Association of Exporters in Antalya, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
No region has felt the shock more than Central and South America. ``The least developed countries in Latin America are scared to death,'' says William Reinsch, president of the Washington-based National Foreign Trade Council.
In Colombia, Chinese textiles are displacing products in domestic as well as export markets, says Ivan Amaya, president of the Colombian Association of Textile Producers. Textile imports from China have risen more than fivefold since 2001, according to Amaya.
`They Always Catch Up'
``You have to constantly be innovative and stay ahead of the Chinese as far as designs and colors are concerned, but they always catch up,'' says Romero, who now employs 62 workers after dismissing 12 in the last three years.
Amaya says that without government measures, Colombia's denim, cotton-shirt and trouser production may vanish in three years, along with 14,000 jobs
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