OPINION

January 24, 1955

PROTECTIONISM: The president of the central council of textile industry organizations, Mr Tegopoulos, sent a memorandum to the coordination minister, Mr Panayiots Papaligouras, yesterday, asking for the adoption of various measures to support the textile industry which he said was at risk of collapsing due to the unrestricted import of fabrics. The memorandum demands «the abolition of unrestricted imports of textile products, an amendment to the tariff code and the immediate doubling of tariffs on all kinds of fabrics and a 60 percent increase of tariffs on threads, a change in the method of payment for imports and textiles not manufactured in Greece, and three-month restrictions on the period during which textile imports can be cleared through customs. The memorandum also proposes that the unrestricted import of cotton textiles has meant that 90,000 spindle machines and 4,500 looms are idle or semi-idle and that 17,500 workers are underemployed. A total of 4.6 million daily wages have been lost, meaning a loss of over 186 million drachmas in workers’ incomes and over 52 million drachmas in social security payments. Another 291 million has been lost from the cotton production industry.»

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