China struck a positive note on Tuesday about the chances of a deal with the United States over its surging textile exports even as the European Union wrestled with proposals to unblock 80 million Chinese garments piling up at EU customs posts.

A wave of textile exports since the abolition of global quotas on 1st January has underlined China's prowess as the world's cheapest mass manufacturer and sent politicians on both sides of the Atlantic scrambling to placate endangered domestic producers.

Chinese and U.S. negotiators, who began a fourth round of talks in Beijing on Tuesday, hope to find enough common ground in time for an agreement to be blessed when presidents Hu Jintao and George W. Bush meet in Washington on Sept. 7.

“China hopes both sides will adopt a positive attitude and seek a solution that will create a stable environment for Sino-American textile trade”, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

But Cass Johnson, president of the U.S. National Council of Textile Organizations, said the two sides were far apart on the length of a deal, what categories it would cover and by how much Chinese exports would be allowed to grow each year.

“To come to an agreement, the Chinese government will have to be willing to move considerably. I hope they'll be willing to do that. But knowing how far apart they are, I would not be surprised to see another round or two”, Johnson told Reuters.

Negotiations were triggered under World Trade Organization rules after Washington imposed emergency curbs to restrain a burst of Chinese exports.

“There is increased likelihood that China and the United States can make substantial progress or even sign an agreement during the fourth round of talks”, the International Business Daily quoted Cao Xinyu, Vice Chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export Textiles, as saying.

The European Union reached a similar agreement in Shanghai on June 10 to replace emergency quotas it, too, had slapped on China.

The June deal, capping growth in 10 lines of textile exports at 8 to 12 percent a year, was greeted at the time as a pragmatic response to a deluge of low-cost clothing from China.

Beijing went along with it because the EU would have been permitted under world trade rules to limit growth in China’s textile exports to 7.5 percent a year until the end of 2008.

But the new quotas were quickly filled, prompting EU customs officers to seize hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of goods.

The mess has exposed a rift between countries with big retail interests but little textile manufacturing that are keen to ease the import restrictions and those, mainly southern, states that are still significant textile producers.