China launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe into EU wine exports on Wednesday, a move China's commerce ministry officials said was a fair trade investigation rather than a tit-for-tat attack against the EU's preliminary ruling on Chinese solar panels Tuesday.
"The wine case is a normal trade probe based on filings from domestic Chinese wine manufacturers as well as relevant Chinese laws and regulations," Liu Danyang, deputy director of the Bureau of Fair Trade for Imports and Exports of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), told reporters.
"We have always been against trade protectionism, and China has been prudent in resorting to trade rescue measures," Liu said, who noted that although the amount of money involved in the probe is not that big, China will carry out the investigation in a fair, just and transparent way, given the importance and sensitivity of the wine sector to the EU.
E-mailed questions sent to the European Commission (EC), the EU's executive arm, seeking comment on the wine probe went unanswered by press time Wednesday.
Liu's comment was made at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday centering on the EC announcement, which slaps provisional anti-dumping duties on solar panels imported from China despite opposition within the 27-member bloc.
The EU has shown some flexibility in its provisional ruling offering a lower tariff rate of 11.8 percent through August 6, said Shen Danyang, MOFCOM spokesman, attributing the flexibility to the efforts of the Chinese government, especially Premier Li Keqiang, who spoke with EC President José Manuel Barroso by phone late Monday.
"Although the EU's announcement, 24 hours ahead of schedule, appears to have frayed the nerves of both sides, the European side has actually made a compromise," Tu Xinquan, associate director of the China Institute of WTO Studies at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times Wednesday.
But the spokesman stressed that the punitive tariffs remain unfair and are indicative of an abuse of trade rescue measures, urging the European side to show further sincerity and flexibility in seeking a mutually acceptable solution through negotiations and consultations.
"China had offered aid to the EU when it suffered its most difficult time during the debt crisis. We really do not want to see the solar panel trade dispute impact the good relationship between the two sides," Shen said.
Fearing a trade war, Philipp Roesler, Germany's Economy Minister, also rebuked Brussels for making a "serious mistake" on Wednesday, AFP reported.
"The (EU) Commission now still has every chance to take the road of negotiations and avoid a trade war between the EU and China," Roesler was quoted by AFP as saying.
The preliminary ruling will definitely do harm to China's solar panel industry, which has already been hit hard by fierce competition, Zhang Yujing, president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said Wednesday.
The exact figure of the potential damage as a result of the provisional antidumping duties is yet to be calculated, according to Zhang, who reiterated that the EU's tariff imposition was groundless, as the price edge maintained by Chinese solar panel products is caused by falling costs of raw materials as well as the nation's technological advancement in the sector.
Miao Liansheng, chairman and CEO of Yingli Green Energy, a major Chinese solar equipment manufacturer, said Wednesday in a statement, "Punitive tariffs - no matter at what level - will inevitably lead to higher prices for solar products causing at least the stagnation of the solar industry in Europe."
Some experts also said the Chinese commerce ministry's wine probe may exert pressure on some EU member states.
France, one of the major wine exporting countries within the EU, called on its EU partners to reach a common response to China's probe of EU wine exports on Wednesday.
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