Pork dumping trade war fears
CHINA said yesterday that it had launched an anti-dumping investigation into pork imports from the EU the latest step in a mounting trade stand-off between the bloc and its largest economic partner.
Pork is China’s most popular meat and a staple of diets in the world’s second-most populous nation.
Imports of pork and pork by-products from EU nations totalled over ¤3 billion (R58.7bn) last year, Beijing’s customs data showed.
The probe is in response to an application submitted by a local trade grouping on behalf of domestic producers, Beijing said.
It follows the bloc’s decision last week to slap more tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese electric car imports from next month after an anti-subsidy probe.
The European Commission pointed to “unfair subsidisation” in China, which it said “is causing a threat of economic injury” to EU electric car makers. The European Commission has proposed provisional hikes of tariffs on Chinese manufacturers of 17.4% for market major BYD, 20 for Geely and 38.1% for SAIC.
The EU said the amount depended on the level of state subsidies received by the firms. Beijing warned the tariffs would “harm Europe’s own interests” and condemned the bloc’s “protectionism”. And it ramped up threats that Beijing could target EU exports, including pork and dairy products.
After China announced its pork probe, the European Commission said yesterday that it “will follow the proceedings closely in co-ordination with EU industry and our member states”.
“We will intervene as appropriate to ensure the probe fully complies with all relevant World Trade Organization rules,” spokesperson Olof Gill said.
Spain’s agriculture minister Luis Planas said yesterday he hoped there would be “room for understanding”.
The Iberian nation is the EU’s largest exporter of pork products to China, selling over 560 000 tons to the world’s second-largest economy last year at a total value of ¤1.2bn, according to industry body Interporc.
Beijing launched an anti-dumping probe in January into brandy imported from the EU in a move seen as targeting France, which had pushed for the commission’s probe.
It also launched an anti-dumping probe last month into imports of a key engineering chemical from the EU, US, Taiwan and Japan.