China and the United States will hold a new round of negotiations on textile trade in Washington during September 26 and 27, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced on Friday.

The ministry did not reveal any details.

A vendor measures cloth at a textile market in Beijing. The US government said it will hold a new round of negotiations with China on an agreement to regulate textiles trade here on September 26-27.[Reuters]

The US Trade Representative office said that the delegations would be led by David Spooner, the chief US negotiator on textile trade, and by Lu Jianhua, director of the Foreign Trade Department of MOFCOM.

The new meeting comes after US-Chinese textile talks in Beijing ended late last month without an agreement. The two countries have already had four rounds of negotiations on the issue since June this year.

"China and the US should reach an agreement as soon as possible," said Cao Xinyu, vice-chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export Textiles.

"As a new ordering season is coming, both Chinese exporters and US importers expect a more explicit trade environment so that they can sign contracts for next year," he told China Daily.

According to Cao, there are three principle issues where the two countries have not reached an agreement - product range, calculation base and the growth rate for quotas.

In May this year, the US Government acted to limit the imports of seven kinds of Chinese textile products.

China strongly opposed the US's actions, saying that although the United States knew that global quotas should be eliminated on January 1, 2005, it maintained 90 per cent of the products with quotas at the last minute.

"So it is unfair to blame the Chinese side for a substantial increase" of textile exports, Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai said earlier, Xinhua reported.

On September 1, the US announced it was to restrict imports of another two textile products from China, after the fourth round of talks failed.

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