January 28, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 08, 1428

LILLE, Jan 27: European clothing firms are ditching their local suppliers and are opting more and more for cheaper imports from Asia, especially China, according to a French study released here.

Around 75 per cent of clothes bought by the firms come from outside the European Union, with 64 per cent from Asia and 36 per cent from China alone, the study from the Lille-based French Fashion Institute said.

Evelyne Chaballier, one of the report's authors, said that after import tariffs were scrapped on clothes from Asia in 2005 there was an initial spike in the amount of textiles sourced there.—AFP