Restrictions on Asian Imports Criticized

SINGAPORE â€”  The world must adapt to Asia’s rising superpowers China and India and avoid imposing tariffs, a World Bank official said Wednesday, calling such measures bad policy.

Trade restrictions such as the temporary tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese textiles were outdated forms of protection, said Peter Stephens, the World Bank’s regional communications manager for East Asia and the Pacific Region.

“The world still thinks of China as an issue that needs to be managed,� he said at a briefing in Singapore.

“Attempting to manage the world’s fastest-growing economy and the country with the world’s biggest population is preposterous. It’s delusional.�

The comments came a day after the World Bank’s director for China, David Dollar, said Beijing’s exchange rate policy that keeps the yuan valued at 8.276 to 8.28 per dollar was a “legitimate choice� and not a manipulation of the Chinese currency.

The World Bank has said that China’s exports have climbed at a 20% to 30% annual clip, well ahead of world trade growth rates of 6% to 8%.

Clothing and textiles were the biggest contributors to a swing in China’s trade balance to a surplus of $21 billion in the first four months of 2005 from a deficit of $11 billion a year earlier.

“In the face of rising exports, imposing tariffs and restrictions on trade is the worst response,� Stephens said. “It is unfair, and it is bad policy.�

The European Union also has considered imposing tariffs to curb textile imports from China but came to a deal with Beijing this month to limit growth in the shipments of some goods.

EU figures show that imports of Chinese T-shirts rose 187% in the year through the first quarter of 2005.

Stephens said tariffs might slow China textile imports but would push jobs to other parts of Asia such as Cambodia and Vietnam or other regions such as Latin America or Africa.