He said there was no question of renegotiating the end of the quotas from January 1, 2005, agreed under the last, so-called Uruguay Round of global trade talks in the 1990s.

"The end of quotas was the great victory of the developing countries 10 years ago and and I don't think we can come back on it," he told the international trade committee of the European Parliament.

Countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are now concerned that the end of the quotas removes the relative protection for their exports to the European Union, and that they will be squeezed out by massive Chinese exports.

"There are a lot of worries at home, among businesses and unions, but also elsewhere, in developing countries, given the Chinese competition," said Lamy.

But he pointed out that developing countries could use "flexibilities" in a number of EU import tariff regimes, such as rules of origin, general preferences and the Everything But Arms initiative.

These "would allow them to pull back some ground in terms of competitive edge against the Chinese," said Lamy.

European Union countries imported some 12.3 billion euros' (14.98 billion dollars') worth of textile products from China last year, by far the biggest single slice of the 70 billion euro value of the sector.

Some 47 countries, including industrialised and developing countries, asked the World Trade Organisation on June 17 to delay the abolition of textile quotas until December 2007, fearing an avalanche of Chinese imports.