CHINA must act to stop its quotas for textile shipments to the United States being cut by up to 30 per cent from Friday, after talks on bilateral trade broke down last week, the US says.
''As of now, the last round of talks held in Washington were not successful. Those talks did break off, but the US is prepared to continue to work on this area and hopes that the Chinese will take our concerns very seriously,'' a US official said.
Reports from Xinhua (the New China News Agency) suggested that talks had broken down irrevocably and that Washington was set to slash Chinese textile exports to the US by between 25 and 35 per cent.
That report coincided with the latest round of talks on Sino-US trade conflicts - market access and intellectual property rights - which ended last week.
Bilateral textiles issues were not discussed as they do not form part of the portfolio of the China trade representative, Lee Sands.
The US official said the December 31 deadline, rolled over from October, remained in place.
''There is no new round of talks scheduled and we are waiting for China to indicate they want to discuss it with us,'' she said.