REUTERS in Beijing

US import limits on cotton trousers made on the mainland would violate free-trade principles, the China Daily quoted Chinese textile exporters as saying yesterday.

The Bush administration launched an investigation on Friday that could lead to emergency import restrictions on cotton trousers from the mainland from early next year.

US textile groups fear massive job losses caused by a flood of cheap clothing from the mainland when a decades-old import quota system is eliminated at the end of this year as the result of a 1994 world trade agreement.

They are in the process of filing 10 separate petitions asking for new "safeguard" quotas to be imposed on clothing from the mainland when the current quotas expire.

"It's an extreme example of trade protectionism," the China Daily quoted the China Textile Import and Export Chamber of Commerce as saying.

A spokesman for the China National Textile Industry Council questioned the timing of the US move.

"It appears to be more political since the US government made the decision days before the country's presidential election," he was quoted as saying.

In Hong Kong yesterday, the head of the American Apparel and Footwear Association said the US petitions were unfair and politically motivated.

"The fact that a number of safeguard petitions were filed right around election time is the best evidence that the textile industry in the US has focused more on election distortion and not on market distortion," association president Kevin Burke said.

The US safeguard quotas, which last only one year, would limit the mainland's growth in the clothing category to no more than 7.5 per cent more than the previous year.