China wants negotiations on EU wine dispute, Commerce Ministry says
Beijing seeks talks on allegations of EU wine dumping but denies move is a tit-for-tat response to solar panel dispute
China would welcome talks with the European Union on an investigation into whether Europe is dumping wine, the Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday, and it dismissed any suggestion the inquiry was linked to a dispute over solar panels.
China began an inquiry in July into whether Europe was selling wine in China at unfairly low prices with the help of subsidies. That was widely considered to be retaliation for an EU move to impose punitive duties on Chinese solar panels.
Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said at a monthly news conference China’s investigation into EU wine was not in retaliation against any EU investigation such as the solar panel case.
“China has never linked this case to other trade friction cases targeting China and we also oppose any attempt to interpret the EU wine case as a retaliation against the solar panel case,” Shen said.
The Commerce Ministry was only responding to requests from domestic firms to launch the wine investigation, and that the case was now “in the normal process of investigation”, he said.
“China welcomes talks and negotiations between the two sides’ industries to seek a solution to resolve the dispute and we would like to provide convenience [for such talks],” Shen said.
“As far as I know, the industries of China and the EU have started initial contact with each other and we hope the two sides could produce a positive result through negotiations.”