Brussels, 06/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - During the visit of the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to the European Commission, (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.8), a high level trade policy dialogue was set up today by EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and his Chinese counterpart Trade Minister Bo Xilai to address issues in rapidly-growing bilateral trade relations as well as on WTO issues. They also launched a forum to discuss trade in textiles as clothing, in particular in view of the disappearance of remaining WTO quotas on textiles by 2005. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said: "Setting up a dialogue over trade issues shows how the EU and China can use cooperation and discussion to deal with issues of common interest, sometimes difficult, for the benefit of both sides."
The EU-China Trade Policy Dialogue aims at facilitating the exchange of views between China and the EU on trade issues and creating a better understanding about each other's views and positions on multilateral, regional and bilateral economic and trade issues. The dialogue shall meet annually in Brussels and Beijing on a rotating basis. The interlocutors on both sides shall respectively be the Vice Minister responsible for European Affairs of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) and the Director General of Directorate General Trade in the Commission. Topics to be covered in this dialogue include multilateral trade issues, regional trade agreements, key bilateral trade issues or modifications of the regulatory environment in the EU and China which might have an important impact on bilateral trade.
The high level dialogue on textiles trade aims at addressing textile trade issues of common interest. In particular the dialogue will seek to ensure a smooth transition to a quota-free textiles trade environment from 2005, when the remaining WTO quotas on textiles and clothing trade will be eliminated. The EU textiles and clothing industry, as well as a number of their counterparts in developing countries, have expressed concern about the steep increase of Chinese exports of textile and clothing products to the EU over the past two years. They fear a surge when textiles quotas are abolished on 1 January 2005. To pre-empt potential conflicts, China and the EU have set up a textiles trade dialogue to examine ways to avoid major trade disruption as a result of quota elimination. The Commission expects the dialogue 'to lead to practical results which will have a tangible and positive effect on trade in textiles and clothing between the two sides, based on a fair and healthy competition in the marketplace'. In addition to the government-to-government dialogue, an EU-China business dialogue is also being set up.
In 2003, EU-China bilateral trade amounted to € 135 billion € and China overtook Switzerland as EU 2nd trading partner behind the US (after having overtaken Japan in 2002). China is the EU's largest supplier of textile and clothing products. In 2003 such imports from China represented EUR 12.3 bn or 17.5% of total EU imports, and represented an increase of 8.3% over 2002, of 18% over 2001, and of 156 % over 1995. At present, imports from China still subject to WTO quotas represent 12 % of China's total textile and clothing exports to the EU.