The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that the Chinese Minister of Commerce and the European Union Trade Commissioner agreed to hold consultations on European Union duties on electric cars imported from China.
The ministry added, on its website, that Trade Minister Wang Wentao received an invitation to hold a meeting via video conference with Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice President of the European Commission.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who is currently on a visit to China, said that Dombrovskis informed him that there would be concrete talks on tariffs with China.
Habeck said in Shanghai that the goal is to achieve equal opportunities between countries. He said, “It is good that we move towards export, but we do not use subsidies to achieve this.”
Habeck, who is also the German Vice Chancellor, confirmed earlier today, Saturday, in the Chinese capital, Beijing, that the additional duties imposed by the European Union on Chinese electric cars “are not to punish” China, while Chinese leaders said that they would defend their companies.
China, Germany’s important economic partner, reiterated its condemnation of the imposition of these additional duties, which will begin to be implemented next month, and said that they were “purely protectionist” behavior, and vowed a firm response, especially by raising the matter to the World Trade Organization.
“These are not punitive tariffs,” Robert Habeck told the director of the Chinese Economic Planning Agency, Cheng Shanji, on Saturday, according to a recording of his statements sent by the German embassy to Agence France-Presse.
“The Americans did it, Brazil did it, Turkey did it and imposed huge additional duties on Chinese cars,” he said, but “Europe does it differently.”
During this meeting dedicated to climate change and the transition towards an environmentally friendly economy, the German Vice Chancellor stressed that “the matter is not a matter of punishment.”
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