Brussels, 31/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - China is no danger to the European Union, on the contrary, the more China develops and increases its exports, the more benefits for the whole world, reacted EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy to comments by acting President of the Ecofin Council Giulio Tremonti in an interview in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that where China arrives with a zero cost workforce, Italy leaves. It was in another interview with the same newspaper before he left for the WTO mini summit in Montreal (see other article and yesterday's EUROPE, p.3), that Lamy responded to Tremonti's call for “national protection” against Chinese competition. Lamy warned that he totally disagreed. Closing down markets is not part of the EU credo. Lamy added that Chinese exports were certainly increasing, but their imports were also shooting up. The EU bought EUR 80 billion worth of goods from China, exporting goods to the value of EUR 30 bn. That makes a deficit of EUR 50 bn, an acceptable level if one considers that the Chinese economy is luckily growing at 10% a year. Pascal Lamy asserts that the experience of other countries in Asia clearly demonstrates that potential is first fed by low wages and low social welfare, but as production rises, wages and trade union rights also grow.
Asked about the list of EU products to be protected on the world market by quality indicators, Lamy said the Commission feels a short list should be concentrated on, adding that fifty indicators would be too many in his view. He said the fewer there were, the more potential there would be for successful negotiations. Asked whether the EU would find allies in this battle, he said they could count on the developing countries. India has Darjeeling tea, Guatemala has Antigua coffee and the same reasoning applies to a lot of goods produced in African countries, Thailand and China. All these states, he said, would be the EU's allies.