Export Quotas

China announced Tuesday that it will cut its export quotas for rare earth minerals by more than 11% in the first half of 2011, further shrinking supplies of metals needed to make a range of high-tech products after Beijing slashed quotas for 2010. China produces about 97% of rare earth elements, used worldwide in high technology, clean energy and other products that exploit their special properties for magnetism, luminescence and strength. The rare earth issue may further strain relations between China and the United States, which have been battered this year by arguments over everything from Tibet and Taiwan to the value of the Chinese currency.

China announced Tuesday that it will cut its export quotas for rare earth minerals by more than 11% in the first half of 2011, further shrinking supplies of metals needed to make a range of high-tech products after Beijing slashed quotas for 2010. China produces about 97% of rare earth elements, used worldwide in high technology, clean energy and other products that exploit their special properties for magnetism, luminescence and strength. The rare earth issue may further strain relations between China and the United States, which have been battered this year by arguments over everything from Tibet and Taiwan to the value of the Chinese currency.

Japan will maintain voluntary restrictions on its auto exports to the United States in the coming year, sticking to its self-imposed quota of 2.3 million cars, the government said today. The limit will stay only as long as Japan is concerned about a resurgence of car exports to the United States, and the Trade Ministry will remove the curbs as soon as it is satisfied that the exports will not increase, Minister for International Trade and Industry Hiroshi Mitsuzuka told reporters.

In filing its first major complaint of unfair trade practices by accusing China of restricting competitors' access to raw materials, the Obama administration raised hopes among U.S. manufacturers and unions that it would move aggressively to defend their interests in the global economy. But whether the complaint filed Tuesday on behalf of U.S.

The International Coffee Organization has moved to tighten supplies in an effort to stabilize prices. The 74-nation body of producer and consumer countries--empowered under treaty to regulate supplies and prices of coffee beans--announced Tuesday that the export quota for the present quarter had been cut by 1 million bags. The reduction brings the total global quota for the current 1987-88 coffee year down to 55.5 million bags. One bag equals 60 kilos, or 132 pounds.

Acting before President-elect Bill Clinton takes office, Japan said Friday that it will retain self-imposed limits on car exports to the United States for another year. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry said the quota for the 1993-94 fiscal year, which begins in April, will be 1.65 million units, the same as the previous year. Analysts said MITI is aiming to strike a balance between the interests of Japan's ailing car makers and fears of trade retaliation from the new U.S.

The snake and scorpion venom business has become so profitable that officials in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan have imposed export quotas. The official Tass news agency said Monday that Ayaz Mutalibov, leader of the southern republic, signed a decree controlling the export of the venom, along with medicinal herbs and other folk medicine. The law also sets up snake and herb farms to increase the profitable business.

Coffee futures prices took a nosedive Monday as hope waned for efforts to renegotiate international export quotas. On other markets, grain and soybean futures were mostly higher, most livestock and meat futures advanced and energy futures were mostly lower. The meeting in London of the International Coffee Organization appeared on the verge of breaking up without any agreement on export quotas for the 1986-87 season, said Sandra Kaul, an analyst in New York with Shearson Lehman Bros.

The weak dollar produced economic benefits in August as U.S. exports rose sharply, helping shrink the country's trade deficit to its smallest size since January, the government reported Thursday. Economists had been expecting for months that the cheap dollar, which in recent weeks has traded at record lows against the euro, would spur exports, said Gary Hufbauer, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. A weak dollar can help U.S.

China said Tuesday that it planned to launch a quota system to check its booming exports of textiles, a mechanism to help implement a deal reached with the European Union this month that eased trade friction. China canceled export quotas at the start of January as part of a global move to end textile quotas. But surges in textile and clothing exports upset the European Union and the United States, which sought to impose safeguards.

As a poor nation struggling to compete in an increasingly globalized economy, Cambodia has little to offer factory owner Leon Hsu. Electricity is erratic. Traffic along the road to the port of Sihanoukville includes the occasional elephant. If a truckload of men's shirts doesn't reach the port on time, it may be days before another vessel departs for Singapore, where goods are transferred to a larger ship for the voyage to the United States.

U.S. textile and apparel makers stepped up their fight against cheap foreign goods on Wednesday, announcing plans to ask the Bush administration to restrict imports of dozens of categories of Chinese apparel and textile products. The manufacturers want the U.S. government to impose restraints based on the "threat" that imports of Chinese-made T-shirts, khaki pants, towels and other products will surge after global quotas on apparel and textile products are removed at the end of this year. U.S.

President Clinton sought Wednesday to rev up consensus among factory workers in favor of global commerce, as his administration enters potentially pivotal negotiations with China and the opening of controversial talks to lower international trade barriers. At the same Harley-Davidson motorcycle factory here 12 years ago, a very different president, Ronald Reagan, delivered much the same message.

OPEC has promised a sweeping global deal to slash oil production and rescue the collapsed market, but now it has to show it means business. "This is the last-chance saloon," said Leo Drollas, chief economist at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. "If they don't produce a credible agreement, I think they will be consigned to oblivion, forever. No one will believe they can do anything, even in a crisis."

U.S. Penalizes China for Textile Shipments: The U.S. slapped a $19-million charge on China for shipping textile products in violation of a 1994 trade accord. The penalty, announced by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, was levied after the U.S. Customs Service determined that China was attempting to circumvent textile export quotas by shipping more than 2 million garments to the U.S. through seven countries.

The role of Venezuela and Mexico in driving Monday's surge in oil prices demonstrates the shifting power balance on the world petroleum scene as producers outside the Middle East, especially Venezuela, gain greater clout, analyst said.

U.S. Penalizes China for Textile Shipments: The U.S. slapped a $19-million charge on China for shipping textile products in violation of a 1994 trade accord. The penalty, announced by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, was levied after the U.S. Customs Service determined that China was attempting to circumvent textile export quotas by shipping more than 2 million garments to the U.S. through seven countries.