Leading textile trade organisations are to meet to consider moves to boost the industry.

Bradford's Textile Society is to arrange the get-together after a discussion about its future.

The move follows a call by the society's new president Edward Stanners, a Leeds clothier, for increased co-operation between firms to meet difficult trading conditions and increased competition.

Other items to be discussed at the society's meeting include the possibility of levying firms to raise funds, promoting British quality and styling - especially the Savile Row image - lobbying for help from Whitehall and Brussels and wider use of information technology including the Internet.

Mr Stanners said: "There must be something we can do to take the industry forward.

"It would be wrong to see it get any smaller without a serious fight.''

He said he hoped leading organisations could sit down to see what could be done.

Nicholas Grant, of the Bradford-based Confederation of British Wool Textiles - the senior trade association - said: "We need to be cohesive as an industry.''

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