The Chinese and European wine industries have agreed to a deal that will see Beijing end an anti-dumping inquiry into imports from the EU, China’s commerce ministry said yesterday.
The 28-member EU is China’s biggest trading partner, but ties have been strained at times, most recently last year by mutual dumping accusations over Chinese solar panels and European wine, in which interests of individual EU countries sometimes differed.
The announcement came a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was to set off on a visit to Europe. After six rounds of talks since November last year, the Chinese and EU industries signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday to “solve the dispute through cooperation,” the ministry said in a statement.
The commerce ministry in July announced the anti-dumping investigation into wines from the EU, which were worth US$1.04 billion in 2012, according to official data.
It came after the EU imposed emergency levies on imported Chinese solar panels, with the two embroiled in a series of trade disputes.
Later in July the two announced an “amicable solution” on solar panels, which reduced the tensions and was seen as opening the way for an eventual resolution of the wine issues.
“We are happy to see industries from both sides deepen understanding through dialogue and resolve the dispute via cooperation,” Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng (高虎城) said in a statement.
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