ATLANTA, Jan 11: Rampant imports from Asia are largely to blame for the pain endured by the US textile industry, American cotton industry officials said on Thursday.

President and Chief Executive Anderson Warlick of leading textile mill Parkdale Inc. said in a speech to the annual Beltwide Cotton conference here that textile imports from Asia have surged 80 per cent in the four years since the 1997 Asian financial contagion hit the region.

“Because of pressure from abnormally low priced Asian imports, prices for US textile products have plummeted since 1997,” he said. “Over the last 12 months, the textile crisis has intensified as Asian currencies have continued to fall.”

Warlick said over 100 textile plants in the US have been closed and 60,000 textile workers, over 10 per cent of the industry workforce, have lost their jobs.

“The industry is now suffering its worst downturn in 50 years,” Warlick declared. “A strong US dollar policy has contributed to an unprecedented three-year period of deflationary price cuts for US textile products.”

Warlick cited, in particular, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Taiwan, whose currencies recently hit new lows.

J. Berrye Worsham, president and chief executive of the marketing arm Cotton Inc., said in a separate speech the steep decline in the US cotton mill usage has been caused by “the unprecedented rise in market share by imported textiles and apparel.”

“Net imports accounted for nearly 60 per cent of our markets compared with about 35 per cent in 1997,” he added.—Reuters