The Chinese textile producers have a view that they should develop their own clothing label which will help the tough competition and higher costs for labor, energy and transportation. Chinese garment makers still lag far behind in developing their own brands of clothing, these are the views of Mr. Sheng Jingsheng, President of Romon Group, a leading textile producer in Zhejiang Province. He further added, “At Romon, for example, we top all domestic garment producers with five million suits exported annually but only several thousands of them were domestic brands exported to the United States. Moving forward on the world trade stage requires that, the Chinese garment produces to be more creative and develop and market their own international trade brands”. Competition between Chinese textile producers is also on the rise as earlier this month they dramatically bid up the minimum price on 21 categories of textiles that gives the winners a specified quota to export to the United States. The competition for quota was especially fierce because some categories of textiles were blocked from entering the United States for six months. While the trade embargo on Chinese textiles to the United States dampened growth in the Chinese industry, insiders also blame the lack of quality Chinese brands. It said that, other developing countries, such as India and Bangladesh, are showing an increased competitive edge in textile and
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| garments exports. China's textile exports to the United States have grown by 32 per cent since January 2005, while India and Bangladesh saw growth rates of 34 per cent and 20 per cent respectively, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Commerce. Domestic textile enterprises also have to come to terms with soaring costs. Raw textile materials and transportation costs increased by 10 per cent and labor cost by 15 to 20 per cent in the first half of 2005, according to statistics from the textile and garments associations in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. This may indicate that textile producers will no longer see huge growth by exporting larger and larger quantities of foreign labels but the market has not yet been fully tapped for higher quality garments, said Chen Guoqiang, deputy-director of the industry economy research center under China Garment Association. According to Mr. Hong Zhaoyi, General Manager of Qipai Group, or Seven Brand Group, a leading men garment producer in Fujian Province said, increase in global competition could help China's textile and garment industry to build elite brands by improving product quality. After almost seven rounds of talks between the United States and Chinain November, a major obstacle to bilateral trade was cleared by signing a three-year agreement on textile trade that imposes quotas on Chinese textiles. According to the Ministry of Commerce 30% per cent of the agreed quota next year will be distributed through public bids. 
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