)4145 THE MULTIFIBRE ARRANGEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS ON DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

T | She textile and clothing (T&C) industry has played an impor-tant role in economic development. It is possible to begin T&C production with relatively small amounts of capital and access to a large low-skilled, low-paid work force. ' T&C prod-ucts are "typically among the first items produced and exported by a newly industrializing economy as it begins to diversify away from primary production " (Park and Anderson 1988, p. 1). The T&C industry contributed to the early stages of industrialization in many countries, including Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Today, T&C products lead manufacturing items in both domestic production and exports in many developing countries. In spite of (or perhaps because of) its importance to developing countries, international trade of T&C products has been subject to trade restrictions for many years. As early as 1935, Japan an-nounced (or, more precisely, was forced to announce) a voluntary export restraint (VER) on textile exports to the United States (see Goto 1988b for further details). Although the trend in world trade has been toward trade liberalization since World War II, T&C trade has remained an exception. Since 1961, when the Short-Term Ar-rangement Regarding International Trade in Cotton Textiles (STA) was adopted, special arrangements have been made for international trade of T&C. Restrictions on T&C trade were extended to includ