4. In assessing the role of imports in the present situation there are both short-term and longer-tern factors to be borne in mind. The 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 substential 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 peak 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
st
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 end 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 1970 while imports of man-made fibre cloth now represent 262 of home demand compared with 20% in the first half of 1970. (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 of woven cotton cloth, a figure which is commonly quoted in the trade and equals the pook figure for 1968.)
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