BEIJING, June 18: Many Chinese textiles exporters have enjoyed better business since the country agreed with the European Union a week ago to limit sales, state media reported on Saturday, attributing the rise to the removal of uncertainty.

“Over the past week, our orders have recovered quickly,” Li Lingmin, vice-president of the China National Textiles Import and Export Corp., told the official Xinhua news agency. “The price is also on the rise. The gloomy days are now gone.”

China agreed this month to limit annual growth in exports of various categories of textiles to the European Union to between 8 and 12.5 per cent.

Xinhua said many firms it had contacted had reported better sales and access to credit, often a problem in China, since the deal was concluded.

The agreed limits typically affected such basic products as T-shirts. But Li said his firm would now shift its focus to exporting more costly items, such as suits.

Disputes over textile imports boiled over in April and May as other countries complained of a surge in Chinese sales following the end of a global quota system on Jan 1.

China replied that its trading partners had had years to prepare for the new system — although it had also agreed to a mechanism to limit export surges when it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001.

China is still negotiating a deal on textiles exports to the United States. The European Union has now moved on to investigating China’s sales of cheap shoes.

—Reuters