The domestic textile industry said Monday that it has filed more safeguard petitions seeking to limit the surge of Chinese imports.

Trade associations representing textile, apparel and fiber-producing businesses announced they had filed four petitions covering eight categories of Chinese products that have experienced explosive growth since they came off more than three decades of quota controls on Jan. 1.

The industry wants the government's Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements to determine whether the following categories have been disrupted by Chinese imports this year: non-knit shirts, skirts, pajamas and nightwear. It has also refiled a petition on curtains that the government rejected for technical reasons on June 21.

Manufacturers say safeguards are needed for the survival of the domestic industry, which is concentrated in the Southeast. They say the industry will continue to bleed jobs without quota controls that constrain the flow of Chinese-produced goods to U.S. retailers.

South Carolina had approximately 43,000 textile workers as of April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- about 3,500 fewer workers on company payrolls than on Jan. 1 due to the closing of seven plants in the state this year.

The industry has had success thus far, as the government has sided with domestic manufacturers in re-imposing quota controls on seven categories of Chinese imports.

The quota controls would limit the growth of Chinese imports to 7.5 percent this year, according to China's accession agreement with the World Trade Organization.

By contrast, in cotton trousers alone, Chinese imports ran 1,519 percent higher in the first four months this year than in the first quarter of 2004.

According to the U.S. Office of Textiles and Apparel, preliminary data on July 6 showed that Chinese exports of skirts were up 879 percent, pajamas and nightwear up 646 percent and non-knit shirts up 463 percent for the year.

"The U.S. textile industry is simply asking the U.S. government to act within the rights granted to it by China's accession agreement to the WTO," said Karl Spilhaus, president of the National Textile Association."

Augie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) predicted that more petitions would be filed later this year.

The industry "will keep filing petitions until the United States and China reach a comprehensive agreement to moderate the growth of Chinese textile and apparel imports to a reasonable level through the end of 2008," Tantillo said.

Cass Johnson, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations, said the surge of Chinese product is "directly attributable to the illegal and unfair subsidies given to their producers in an effort to drive all other competitors out of the market."

A top Chinese government official had called the textile issue "a major problem" for trade and economic relations between her country and the United States when the U.S. government re-imposed quota controls on the seven categories of exports last month.