Finally it is the consumers who have won! EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson succumbed to the pressure from its member countries, where consumers were supposed to get affected by higher price tag on pullovers, trousers, etc. due to blocking of cheap Chinese textile goods in the EUropean ports. Mandelson managed to re-negotiate the quota dispute possibly just in time that won him plaudit from many EU members.
Under the terms of the new deal that EU had with China, half of the seized garments would be allowed to enter EU, while the rest would be switched over to un-filled quota or deducted from China's 2006 quota. This means that Brussels would allow about 87 million pieces of Chinese clothing that has been lying in the docks or about 44 million excess garments would be allowed to enter EU markets compared to the earlier agreement signed in June.
EUrope's restrictions on Chinese textile goods are scheduled to last until 2008. Since most of the quota are consumed for the current year as well as half of the blocked
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| textile goods would be released under next years quota, industry experts fear a messier standoff in 2006. EUrope's strategy to armor its own textile industry against surging Asian competition needs careful and well thought out roadmap rather than a quick short term solution. Also, EU members must learn to recognize the growing Chinese as well as Asian economies and should think over again on the protectionism policy since it would not be possible to postpone or prevent inevitable change as reported by Financial Times last week. On the other hand, it is a good lesson for buyers who had complete dependency on Chinese goods.
It is a wake up call for the buyers again not to lay all eggs in the China basket and start re-looking at their sourcing map. It is time to develop new vendors at other low cost manufacturing bases which might be the next best low cost manufacturing hub. A network of favored low-cost factories in countries to the south and east could arise in the days to come, but EUropean policymakers are hoping this will be enough time to allow the Mediterranean cluster to endure as a competitor. 
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