The Chinese Ministry of Commerce is to revise the management rules on textile export quotas in a fresh effort to prevent speculation in the quotas and rectify the textile export market.

Lu Jianhua, director general of the ministry's Foreign Trade Department, didn't say when the amended Provisional Management Method for Textile Exports would take effect. The document came amid last year's Sino-US and Sino-EU textile export disputes.

He said that the ministry was seeking advice from industrial associations and companies. The revision would involve adjustment of the bidding deposits, improvement in distribution criteria for minimum quotas and stricter punishment of companies whose operations led to waste of the quotas.

According to Friday's Beijing News, a number of problems have occurred since the document became effective on July 20 last year. The daily newspaper said that some domestic companies speculated in the quotas to earn illegitimate revenues while others simply left their quotas unused, causing a severe waste.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2006)