Textiles suffer turbulent year

Beijing - Usually high-flying foreign trade in the textile and garment industry had a bumpy year in 2009 as exports fell 10.1 percent to $167 billion, according to the statistics from China Customs.

Sun Huaibin, spokesman of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, blamed the decline on worldwide economic weakness as well as rising protectionism amid the global crisis.

He said protectionism is mainly reflected in more stringent technical standards and "abuse of anti-dumping and subsidy measures", as well as use of safeguard provisions on imports.