Apparel exports reached 116 billion dollars in 2005, up 118.9 percent from five years ago, Xinhua said, citing China's key economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The report did not provide year-on-year comparative figures.

China's textile exports surged after the abolition of a global quota system on January 1, 2005.

The United States and European Union have blamed China for flooding their markets with low-cost goods and have imposed curbs on clothing and fabric imports from China.

In September, the EU had to renegotiate the terms of a deal with Beijing to limit Chinese textile imports after quotas originally agreed by the two sides in June rapidly filled, leaving millions of Chinese-made garments stranded at EU customs points.

The United States and China hammered out a deal which provides for a progressive increase in Chinese imports until 2008 but still caps their growth at far less than that in 2005. Some imports, such as cotton trousers, had surged by more than 1,000 percent.

China had over 19 million textile workers in 2005 and over 70 percent of them had migrated from the countryside, the report.