Photo by Shymaa Rabea
(BEIJING) – The EU Commission and China reaffirmed the importance of cooperation on competition policy for good economic relations Thursday, at a meeting forming part of a new dialogue between the EU and China.
The meeting, between the EU’s Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and Chairman He Lifeng and Vice Chairman Hu Zucai, of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, follows the signing on 2 June this year of a Memorandum of Understanding to start a dialogue on State aid control, creating a mechanism for consultation, cooperation and transparency in this field.
“It is in our mutual interest to work together to promote fair global competition,” said Ms Vestager: “Antitrust, merger review and State aid control are important tools in ensuring that consumers can benefit from competitive markets and companies can compete on their merits. Both the European Commission and the Chinese competition agencies will work closely together for a coherent and efficient competition enforcement.”
The dialogue follows a number of high-profile anti-dumping moves against China, particularly on steel products, where the EU has around 40 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures, with the highest number concerning imports from China.
It also comes a day after the European Parliament voted in new anti-dumping rules to require trade partners outside the EU to meet international social and environmental standards.
The two sides agreed that co-operation on state aid control is important to prevent public policies from distorting or restricting competition, or from harming an internal market.
They acknowledged the mutual benefit of exchanging experiences on how to optimise and steer the use of State resources to promote efficient and sustainable economic development.
In this context, the EU welcomed China’s adoption of a Fair Competition Review System designed to ensure State measures do not adversely affect market entry and exit and the free movement of goods.
As part of this new dialogue, the Commission also met at technical level the 28 ministries in charge of implementing the Fair Competition Review System in China. This cooperation between the EU and China will continue and both sides agreed to take stock of the dialogue at the next EU-China Summit in 2018.
The European Commission and the three Chinese competition agencies have confirmed their readiness to develop closer cooperation on the enforcement of their respective competition laws in the fields of antitrust, mergers and State aid enforcement.
China is the world’s third largest economy and the EU’s second trading partner. The EU is China’s biggest trading partner.
