America’s National Council of Textile Organisations (NCTO) has commended the US Senate for passing two important pieces of trade legislation H.R. 1295 and H.R. 644, addressing trade preference programmes and customs enforcement.
As the Senate now moves to consider another trade package including Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), NCTO has urged the chamber to pass a clean TPA bill without harmful amendments that will damage US textile jobs, manufacturing, and exports.
In a statement, the NCTO pointed out that the US textile industry is a large manufacturing employer in the country which employed 499,500 workers in 2014.
US textile shipments totaled more than $56.7 billion in 2014 and the industry is the third largest exporter of textile products in the world. Exports of all textile products were nearly $18.3 billion 2014. Total textile and apparel exports were a record $24.4 billion in 2014, NCTO said.
The US textile industry invested $20.5 billion in new plants and equipment from 2001 to 2013. And recently producers have opened new fiber, yarn, and recycling facilities to convert textile waste to new textile uses and resins.
The NCTO wants safeguards for the textile industry and pointed out that US textile mills increased productivity by 34 per cent between 2002 and 2012, making textiles one of the top industries among all industrial sectors in productivity boost.