INTERNATIONAL-TRADE IN TEXTILES AND CLOTHING

How is it that by 1988 Germany, acknowledged to be a high-cost producer, was the world's largest exporter of textiles and the fourth-largest exporter of clothing; indeed, that among the top exporters of textiles there were four E.C. countries and the U.S.A. jostling for position with China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, with a similar situation in clothing? Why is it that the lowest-cost producers do not oust the high-cost producers? Is this the result of the Multi-fibre Arrangement, under which the industrialized countries of North America and Western Europe have imposed quota restrictions on imports from developing countries? These questions will be addressed in this survey of international trade.