THE EUROPEAN COTTON TEXTILES INDUSTRIALISTS HAVE ELECTED
BENOIT HACOT AS NEW PRESIDENT OF EUROCOTON
On the occasion of Eurocoton’s last General Assembly, held on 5th and 6th June in Krakow, Poland, in the presence of numerous participants among whom several prominent speakers, more particularly Fritz-Harald Wenig, Director at DG Trade, European Commission, Scott Quesenberry, Special Textile Negotiator of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Executive Office of the President of the United States and Cass Johnson, President of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), accompanied by Auggie Tantillo, General Director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC), Benoît Hacot, Member of the Board of the “Union des Industries Textiles” (UIT) in Paris, representing the French cotton type textile industry and Purchasing Director at Hacot – Colombier was unanimously elected new President of Eurocoton for a two-year term. He succeeds Thomas Lanaras (Greece) who just completed his term of office.
During his term in office, Benoît Hacot the priorities of EUROCOTON activity will be the following:
China textiles
The specific WTO safeguard clause for Chinese textiles will lapse at the end of 2008. Eurocoton shall do its utmost so that the double checking system of the textile and clothing products considered as the most sensitive by the cotton type industry and which are exported by China to the EU, can be renewed at least for 2009.
- Maintaining trustworthy, effective and predictable trade defence instruments
On several occasions, Eurocoton got involved in anti-dumping and anti-subsidies cases. It joined forces with other industrial sectors to defend this tool which was being jeopardized by the European Commissioner, Mr. Mandelson’s reform. With the support of the European Parliament, Eurocoton shall continue to work for the preservation of the efficiency of this system.
- Follow-up of WTO negotiations
Together with Euratex, Eurocoton will continue to follow up these debates very carefully to make sure that the principle of the opening up of markets does not turn out to be detrimental to the textile and clothing products of the EU and of its partner countries in the PanEuroMed Area.
- Preferential rules of origin
Eurocoton is in favour of continuing to determine the origin on the basis of double transformation process while modernizing the list of working operations.
Source: EUROCOTON press material