Employees work on an electric vehicle assembly line at Jiangling Motors' digital automobile factory on May 17, 2024.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING – China hopes to reach an agreement with the European Union soon on tariffs the bloc plans to impose on imported Chinese electric cars, the commerce ministry said on Thursday.
The European Commission announced in mid-June that if discussions with China did not go well, the EU would start imposing additional tariffs on imported Chinese electric cars from Thursday, July 4. The “final measures” would come into force four months after that date, according to a press release.
“We hope the European side will work with China to reach a halfway solution, show sincerity, speed up the consultation process and reach a mutually acceptable solution as soon as possible on the basis of rules and reality,” Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong told reporters in Chinese, according to a CNBC translation.
He stressed China's opposition to the EU's investigation into subsidies, noting that the two sides still have a four-month deadline.
Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with European Commission Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis virtually on June 22 to discuss the EU investigation, according to the Commerce Ministry.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday that the two sides had held multiple rounds of talks at the technical level, but he did not specify whether the talks were ongoing or had ended.
The European Union launched an investigation last year into the role of subsidies in electric vehicle production in China. The new energy vehicle industry, which includes hybrids and battery-only cars, has seen rapid growth in China and automakers such as BYD Vehicles began to be exported to Europe and other regions.
The Chinese government has spent $230.8 billion over more than a decade to develop its electric vehicle industry, according to an analysis by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
