Terming as unreasonable the restrictive measures adopted by the US and the European Union (EU) to curb Chinese textile imports, Beijing has said it hopes to resolve the trade spat through negotiations, reports Xinhua.

After the US and the EU took restrictive measures against China's textile products, China announced Monday that it would no longer impose export tariffs on 81 categories of textile products, beginning June 1, 2005.  

Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said that the restrictive measures taken by the two parties were "groundless."

"It is unreasonable and unscientific" to re-impost restriction based on primary data in the first three or four months, he said, adding that both the EU and the US did not provide detailed statistics to China.

However, he emphasised that the Chinese government attached great importance to relations with the two parties and hoped that friendly cooperation could be continued.

"We will not take retaliatory actions since economic and trade cooperation with the two parties are very extensive. Some parties tend to use restrictive or retaliatory measures when problems come out, but this is not a way to solve the problems properly," Bo said. 

Bo said China had adopted a number of measures including voluntary restriction on textile export, lowering export growth and increasing tariff on textile exports to ensure the steady flow of its textile exports to the EU and US.

China's reaction came in response to the EU's decision to impose quotas on imports of Chinese textiles and the US decision to re-impose restrictions on seven kinds of Chinese textiles and clothing imports.