Chinese and US negotiators aim to thrash out a deal over China's surging textile exports for President Hu Jintao and U.S. President George W. Bush to sign next month, an industry executive said in remarks published Monday.

    The Market Daily newspaper quoted Li Lingmin, vice president of the China National Textiles Import and Export Corp., as saying talks would take place in Beijing before the end of August.

    "Barring the unexpected, a final agreement is very likely to be signed in September during the meeting of the two leaders," said Li, whose firm is one of China's top 20 foreign trade companies.

    Hu will travel to the United Nations next month and will hold talks with Bush.

    A Commerce Ministry official confirmed that textile talks, the fourth round between the two sides, would take place in the Chinese capital but provided no further details.

    Two days of meetings last week in San Francisco yielded progress but no breakthrough.

    The United States imposed curbs on several categories of Chinese clothing after exports soared following the abolition Jan. 1 of a decades-old system of quotas on developing countries¡¯ textile exports.

    In invoking the safeguard curbs, which limit growth in the products affected to 7.5 percent a year, The United States was acting in accordance with terms that China agreed when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

    The safeguards can be renewed until the end of 2008.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencis)