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2009-09-09 | Beijing, Shanghai, Southwest China, Nanjing, Shenyang, Tianjin, South China
EU trade chief urges China to ease barriers
DPA, 9th September 2009
Beijing - European Union Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton on Wednesday urged China to ease barriers that help produce a long-term imbalance in bilateral trade.
Ashton said China and the EU needed to 'coordinate closely our policies' to help remove 'increasingly intangible obstacles' to trade.
'They are non-tariff barriers arising from different traditions and standards,' she said, citing problems in China such as poor protection of intellectual property, regulatory hurdles and unequal treatment for foreign investors.
Bilateral trade reached 326 billion euros (472 billion dollars) last year, but EU exports to China remained limited, Ashton said in a speech at Beijing's University of International Business and Economics.
'The fact that the EU is China's main export destination and China is the EU's largest source of imports speaks volumes of our openness,' Ashton said.
'On the other hand, the EU still exports more to Switzerland, which has less than 10 million inhabitants, than to China. While some degree of imbalance is inevitable, our economies are complementary and a more harmonious balance should be our shared objective,' she said.
Speaking in the southern city of Xiamen on Tuesday, she said there were also 'warning signs in our bilateral investment relationship,' with decreases in investment on both sides last year.
'Although European business clearly sees China as an attractive destination, there is also some disappointment amongst those that have invested in China, and some wariness amongst those who are considering it,' Ashton said.
In her speech on Wednesday, she urged more open dialogue between China and the European Union to overcome the problems.
'Together we can not only identify and remove the barriers to our mutual trade and investment, increasing prosperity for our citizens,' she said.
'But we can also put our relationship to work by jointly leading the world on concluding the Doha Round [of global trade talks] and on making the transition to a low carbon future.'
Last week, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China highlighted similar problems with investment and trade in China, and said the pace of China's market reforms had slowed down over the past year.
The chamber's annual position paper, based on a survey of many of its 1,400-plus members, said operating conditions in China had worsened in some sectors, with increases in industrial-policy interventions and foreign investment restrictions.
'We are convinced that this is an ideal moment for China to adopt a new and bolder cycle of reforms, a move that would ensure that China maximises its growth potential over the next five to 10 years,' said Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU chamber.