Yabin Zhou, the director-general of the west Asian and African affairs department in the ministry of commerce, said last week: "The liberalisation of textiles is a legal right of China. It provides a lot of jobs to Chinese people.

"Every country will sell products to their advantage … Chinese products suit African markets. Our products have a high quality to price ratio."

In 2005 there were more than 20 million people in China working in the industry. More than 100 million farmers also relied on it.

"To China, with a big poor population, the textile industry is important. So to keep it stable is very significant," Zhou said.

In South Africa, local manufacturers have been unable to compete with cheap Chinese clothing and textiles, resulting in the loss of about 25 000 jobs between December 2003 and January this year, according to the Clothing Trade Council of South Africa.

Elsewhere in the world, other clothing and textile industries have also suffered.

According to James Kynge's book, China Shakes the World, some of the best-established textile manufacturing centres in Italy have suffered a similar fate. Chinese migrant labourers either set up in competition against local businesses or Italian companies outsourced production to China, wrote Kynge.

Zhou said: "We are strategic partners [with South Africa]. We would like to help you out but we are already facing pressures at home."

China has impressive gross domestic product growth, which rose 10.7 percent last year. But it also has millions of unemployed. According to a World Trade Organisation report published last year, continued structural reform will increase unemployment in certain sectors and more than 100 million jobs will need to be created in China over the next decade.

Despite China's pressures at home, South Africa secured a deal whereby the import of 31 categories of clothing and textile products from China were restricted from January this year until the end of next year.

Zhou said exports from China to South Africa had decreased substantially, with some categories declining by 30 percent and others by as much as 50 percent.

"These numbers have proved the agreement has been implemented well," Zhou said.

But South Africans have continued to import cheap textile products from elsewhere.

Zhou said that in the first four months of the year, imports from Malaysia rose 560 percent year on year, while those from Myanmar jumped 341 percent. Imports from India also rose.

"So from this you can see South Africa has huge demand for textile products," he said.

Other countries have taken the gap. Zhou said South Africa's textile industry must become more competitive.