Textiles

Textiles and International Trade Economy

In relation to international trade economy, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following definition of Textiles: Historically, one of t e most politically sensitive and contentious sectors of international trade. As define in the Multifiber Arrangement (Sec.l), textiles encompass “yarns, piece goods, made-up articles, garments, and other textile manufactured products (being products that derive the r chief characteristics from their textile components) of cotton, wool, man-made fibers or blends thereof, in which any or all of those fibers in combination represent either e chief value of the fibers or 50 percent or more by weight (or 17 percent or more by weight of wool) of the product.” Within the textiles sector, apparel products often utilize more unskilled labor and less expensive capital equipment than in other manufacturing industries; as a result, they often are among the first manufactured goods to be produced in a developing country. Nearly all-industrial countries also have large, politically significant textile industries, and these are vulnerable to import competition n from low-wage countries, setting the stage for international trade friction. More recently, textiles have come to include an increasing range of goods that require mo e capital-intensive production processes, especially some of the more sophisticated man- made fibers and complex knit cloths.