LONDON, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- British retailers and importers have warned that protectionist measures will not save jobs and called the ban on Chinese textiles a "disaster."

    They urged Monday night for an immediate lift of the restrictions on the Chinese clothes that are in ships off the coast and are worth millions of pounds, the Guardian reported on Tuesday.

    The problem arose after restrictions on clothing imports from China were lifted by the European Community in January this year. After imports rocketed and European textile manufacturers complained, Peter Mandelson, the European Trade Commissioner, introduced quotas in June.

    Some of the quotas, however, were breached within a month, forcing officials across Europe to impound at least 59 million sweaters and 16 millions pairs of men's trousers.

    Because of the ban, consumers will have to pay much higher prices for their autumn and winter clothes, British retailers claimed.

    "The Chinese are hard-working and their products are of high quality. Why turn their clothes away and make British people buy things at higher prices," a lady complained in one of London's bigretail chain stores.

    "I don't think a single T-shirt is going to get made in Italy or France or Portugal because of these quotas," said Mark Neale, of the outdoor clothing specialist store Mountain Warehouse.

    Retail experts described the current situation as "the biggest crisis in clothing since the Second World War."

    "It is having a crippling effect (on the retail industry) and will be a major disruption to autumn collections across the board," said Alisdair Gray, the director of the British Retail Consortium, in Brussels earlier.

    Fashion companies described it as a "disaster." The delayed delivery of their imports from China by the EU ban is causing huge losses.

    Many big companies like M&S in London refused to comment on the ban, fearing that any complaint of the possible shortage of autumnand winter clothes may turn their customers away. But some have complained, insisting their names not be mentioned.

    "The winter season is short and the very nature of fashion means that we can't sell these clothes next year," said a spokesman for one chain shop.

    The fact that winter clothes are generally heavy creates another problem -- the likely high cost of storage.

    Industry sources said that the ban affects all large retail chains, including M&S, Jigsaw, Whistles, French Connection and theArcadia Group, are warn that their stores will run out of clothes if the deadlock over imports from China is not resolved in the coming days.

    H&M, which manufactures 30 percent of its clothing in China, said that it was attempting to find solutions to the problem by redirecting some of its production to other Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and sending its Chinese imports to shops in non-EU member countries like Canada, Norway and Switzerland.

    But smaller firms, which do not have the funds necessary to shift their orders and redirect their impounded imports, are facing big losses.

    Both EU and US trade representatives head to Beijing this week for talks. The EU hopes to borrow quotas from 2006 to ease the present tension.

    But analysts warn that limiting cheap imports could drive up inflation in Britain, which is already above its 2 percent target.

    A quarter of the world's clothing is now produced in about 35,000 factories in cities along the Yangtze River and Pearl River deltas. More than 18 million workers are directly employed in the Chinese textile industry, and about another 100 million are indirectly related to the industry. Enditem