Reporter:
EU Ambassador Hans Dietmar Schweisgut says the assessment work will be carried out by European Commission in the coming months.
Speaking at a news conference here in Beijing, the ambassador says changing market economy status for China involves not only legal issues but also economic influences.
"This is not… because there is always some confusion… this is not about recognizing, as such, whether China is a market economy, we are talking about the relevant provision and accession protocol, which is linked to procedures for anti-dumping and the question of determining prices. It's a very complicated technical issue. Just to be clear, we are talking about a limited interpretation of the accession protocol, which implies legal issues but which obviously also has economic implications."
To echo the comment, China says it welcomes EU's careful research on this issue and has urged the bloc to abide by WTO regulations.
Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shen Danyang.
"No matter how the European Commission makes assessments or comments, we are mainly concerned about the fact that according to Article 15 of the "Accession of the People's Republic of China", members of the WTO should terminate the "surrogate" country practice by December 11 this year, and this is an international obligation that WTO members must abide by."
Since China is currently not characterized by the EU as a full market economy, countries that level dumping accusations against it always pick data from a "surrogate" country with a recognized market economy.
EU Ambassador Hans Dietmar Schweisgut says that the union's anti-dumping measures are "strictly" under the WTO rules.
"The European Union acts on the basis of the WTO law and the basis of … the current situation with regard to the accession protocol of China provides in more specific areas of anti-dumping procedures, for especially procedures concerning the application of comparable prices… Overall, the EU policy is very clear; we use anti-dumping measures strictly in accordance with WTO procedures.
China is now the second largest trading partner of the EU and has been a WTO member for 15 years.
However, the EU has not yet granted China Market Economy Status.
For CRI, I'm Luo Bin.
