Garment exports and user fee collections drop to Feb. ’95 levels

Saipan garment exports, as well as user fee collections from the apparel industry have decreased to levels of a decade ago, according to the Governor’s Office.

Richard Pierce, the governor’s special assistant for trade relations, reported that sales for March 2006 totaled only $37.3 million, with user fee collections netting only $1.382 million in revenue.

“The collections have not been as small since February 1995,” Pierce said.

In March 2006, the CNMI Division of Customs Services issued 1,141 certificates of origins for export from Saipan’s 17 factories, with a total of 5,680,900 units of production sent to department and retail stores in the mainland United States.

Pierce noted that the March 2006 sales represented a 35 percent decrease from the $57.2 million sales in March 2005; a 42-percent drop from $64.8 million in March 2003; and a 52-percent drop from $77.1 million in March 2000.

Meanwhile, the number of certificate of origins issued last month represented a 36-percent decrease from 1,786 in March 2003 and a 42-percent drop from 1,968 in March 2000.

Units exported for the same time period in 2003 were 11,159,783. In 2000, the exported pieces of men’s, women’s and children’s apparel totaled 13,945,348.

Pierce recently returned from Washington, D.C. meetings with congressional committees and Administration officials in discussion on General Note 3(a) legislative language.

He reported that several developments with regard to the garment situation, which resulted from the 2005 lifting of textile trade quotas.

Pierce said that, on April 6, U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham offered an amendment to a State Department authorization bill that would impose a 27.5-percent tariff on all imports from China if it does not revalue its currency within 180 days.

On the same day, several domestic textile industry groups announced the filing of seven new petitions with the U.S. government seeking safeguard quotas on the following categories of textile and apparel products from China.

The European Commission, on April 6, also issued guidelines on when and how it will consider safeguards against textile and apparel imports from China.

The Commonwealth is currently lobbying U.S. Congress to pass a Senate bill amending General Note 3(a).

The amendment would lower the local value added requirement from the current 50 percent to 30 percent. Such free trade agreements now exist between the United States and many foreign countries.

Senate bill, S. 1954, was introduced in the U.S. Senate last year by Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Senator Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. The bill awaits consideration before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. (Agnes E. Donato)