Takeo Hiranuma, chief of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, hinted Tuesday that the government would support the imposition of an emergency curb on towel imports from China to help domestic towel makers.

"We will make preparations after receiving a petition to be filed by the towel industry with the government," he told a session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee. "We will consider it thoroughly."

Hiranuma made the remarks in reference to the Japan Towel Industrial Association's decision last week to file by the end of the month a petition urging the government to invoke the "safeguard" clause in international trade rules.

Hiranuma also said his ministry intends to treble subsidies for small and midsize makers of towels and other textile products hit hard by a steep increase in imports.

The increase in subsidies is designed to help small textile makers grow from subcontractors into independent makers capable of designing and developing new products, officials of the ministry said.

The ministry has earmarked 600 million yen in the fiscal 2001 budget as textile industry subsidies, compared with nearly 200 million yen set aside in a normal year.

According to towel industry figures, the volume of towel products imported to Japan in the first 11 months of last year rose 16.6 percent over the previous year to 59,000 tons, with China accounting for 80 percent of the imports.

In view of the plight of domestic textile makers, the ministry loosened at the end of last year its prerequisites for invoking the textile import curb to match the international standard.