Strasbourg, 19/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has, for several months, been investigating whether Chinese export credits are consistent with WTO rules. According to DG Trade documents referred to by the Reuters agency, BusinessEurope, the European employers' organisation, is currently gathering complaints from its members to support a possible complaint to the WTO, or even an EU trade defence investigation. The Commission, BusinessEurope says in a letter to its members, needs concrete evidence that Chinese export credits and guarantees have resulted in competition distortions.
Export credits are state loan guarantees or loans which help national companies export. While most nations have signed an international OECD agreement which bans severely reduced interest rates or other assistance which might be seen as government subsidies to exporters, China has not. More and more European companies are complaining that export credits are one of a number of subsidies granted by the Chinese government which help Chinese companies win ever larger shares of markets - worth several billion euro in a wide range of sectors, from industrial equipment, to telecommunications equipment and the aviation sector - in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at the expense of European competitors.
Should it be proved that there have been government subsidies, export credit policies are prohibited and may be challenged at the WTO, the Commission says in its document. The Commission states, too, that countervailing duties cases may also be brought against such subsidies. John Clancy, the spokesman for Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, has confirmed that this issue was discussed at the last meeting of the EU-China economic and trade dialogue mechanism in December. (E.H./transl.rt)