MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th August, 2023) The European Union must lift its export restrictions against China in order to eliminate imbalance in trade with the country, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
On Monday, European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper that the EU will push China to reduce barriers for European exports as part of strategic dialogue in September. This comes as the EU's trade deficit neared 400 billion Euros ($437 billion) last year. Dombrovskis added that EU and China have a very unbalanced trade relationship because despite the fact that "China is running a huge surplus," its level of openness in trade is far less than that of the EU.�
"The EU restrictions on export of high-tech products to China in recent years directly limited the EU's ability to tap the potential of export to China and led to unbalanced trade between the two sides. If the EU truly wants to address this issue, it needs to lift export control against China, rather than putting the blame on China," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also said that China has never tried to achieve a surplus in trade. Its presence in EU-China trade is the result of different industrial structures, industrial specialization, trade practices and external factors, it added.
"For years, the majority of EU companies in China have benefited hugely from China-EU trade. This is the fundamental reason why they have chosen to operate and expand business in China," the statement read.
On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a phone call with the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell welcomed his visit to China coming up this fall for a strategic dialogue and preparations for the China-EU leaders' summit.
Borrell postponed his visit to China twice this year. The first postponement was in April, when the EU's top diplomat contracted COVID-19, and the second postponement was in July, unilaterally by Beijing without giving a reason, after EU leaders revised the bloc's China policy in June.
