China on Thursday said that an investigation had found the EU imposed unfair “trade and investment barriers” on Beijing, marking the latest salvo in long-running commercial tensions between the two economic powers.
Officials announced the probe in July last year after Brussels began looking into whether Chinese government subsidies were undermining European competition.
Beijing has consistently denied its industrial policies are unfair and has threatened to take action against the EU to protect Chinese companies’ legal rights and interests.
Photo: AFP
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said the implementation of the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) discriminated against Chinese firms and “constitutes trade and investment barriers.”
It did not mention whether Beijing planned to take action in response.
The two are major trade partners, but are locked in a wide-ranging standoff, notably over Beijing’s support for its renewables and electric vehicle sectors.
EU actions against Chinese firms have come as the 27-nation bloc seeks to expand renewable energy use to meet its target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
However, Brussels also wants to pivot away from what it views as an overreliance on Chinese technology at a time when many Western governments increasingly consider Beijing a potential national security threat.
When announcing the probe, the Chinese ministry said its national chamber of commerce for importing and exporting machinery and electronics had filed a complaint over the FSR measures.
The 20-page document detailing the ministry’s conclusions said their “selective enforcement” resulted in “Chinese products being treated more unfavorably during the process of export to the EU than products from third countries.”
The FSR had “vague” criteria for investigating foreign subsidies, placed a “severe burden” on the targeted companies, and had opaque procedures that created “huge uncertainty,” it added.
EU measures such as surprise inspections “clearly exceeded the necessary limits,” while investigators were “subjective and arbitrary” on issues such as market distortion, the ministry said.
Companies deemed not to have complied with probes also faced “severe penalties,” which placed “huge pressure” on Chinese firms, it added.
The European Commission on Thursday defended the FSR, saying it was “fully compliant with all applicable EU and World Trade Organization rules.”
“All companies, regardless of their seat or nationality, are subject to the rules,” a commission spokesperson said in a statement. “This is also the case when applying State aid or antitrust rules.”
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
RSS