4.
The
In assessing the role of imports in the present situation there
are both short-term and longer-term factors to be borne in mind.
last two years have coincided with a trough in the textile cycle and
estimated home demand for woven cotton and man-made fibre cloth declined
by around 8% between 1968 and 1970. In the first half of 1971 this
decline was halted. However, during 1969 and 1970 the industry was
cushioned to a considerable extent against the effects of this fall in
demand by an even larger fall in imports, the greatest part accounted
for by substantial under use of the quotas for low cost cotton cloth.
The spinning sector was also helped by the growth in demand in yarn for
knitting. Home production of woven cloth in this period held up much
better than might otherwise have been expected thus presumably allowing
the survival of a number of firms despite their failure to achieve
improvements in productivity and efficiency. In 1971 there has been
a marked recovery in imports of woven cotton cloth to a level somewhere
in between that in 1969 and the paak year of 1968 and there has also
been a substantial increase of over 30% in the rate of imports of woven
mmf cloth as compared with the first half of 1970. Despite the halt
in the decline in home demand, therefore, demand on home production of
woven mmf cloth has declined somewhat this year and demand on home
production of woven cotton cloth has declined dramatically by nearly
17% over the first half of 1970. Imports therefore now represent 46%
of home demand for cotton cloth compared with 34% in the first half of
1971 while imports of man-made fibre cloth now represent 26% of home
demand compared with 20% in the first half of 1971. (If the effect of
imports of cotton made-ups is added in, retained imports of cotton
textiles can be said to represent over 50% of apparent consumption
woven cotton cloth, a figure which is commonly quoted in the trade and
equals the peak figure for 1968.)
of
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