EU-China dialogue on industrial sectors underlines importance of open economies

Today, Director-General Lowri Evans of the Directorate-General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, and Vice-Minister Xin Guobin co-chaired the 5th plenary meeting of the Dialogue on industrial sectors between the DG and MIIT (the Ministry of Industry and Information technology of China).

The co-chairs updated each other on recent policy developments in their regions. The Director-General presented the European Commission flagship initiatives linked to industrial policy, with a special focus on the Investment Plan, the Internal Market strategy and EU priorities regarding China.

Vice-Minister Xin presented new Chinese industrial policy - 'China manufacturing 2025' and the recently published 13th Five-Year plan. Manufacturing 2025 aims to transform China's industrial fabric, by speeding up restructuring and upgrading to achieve better quality and efficiency, and shifting into higher-tech and higher-value-added products. 

They agreed that businesses on both sides are part of global value chains and it is important to keep the economies open and foster win-win business cooperation. EU businesses have know-how and technologies that could contribute to the modernisation of the Chinese economy, but they need to be reassured regarding market access, intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, forced technology transfer and economic nationalism.

The 5 working groups under the dialogue reported their activities to the plenary:

• SME policy - priority areas are improving the business environment for SMEs, facilitating access to finance and IPR protection.
• Energy efficiency in industry - energy efficiency and emissions reduction were recognised as priority areas for both sides. The Commission is about to present an ambitious circular economy strategy. .
• Raw materials -  the problem of overcapacity in steel was underlined. Ms Evans recognised Chinese efforts in trying to curb overcapacity and shift from quantity to quality, but called for speed, since this is very serious issue for the EU steel sector. .
• Automotive - automotive extensive cooperation allows both systems to remain aligned and provide for an efficient approval system, for an ambitions framework for fuel economy and for a gradually more stringent framework for pollutants. The EU encourages a more active contribution of China to the United Nations global regulatory work for motor vehicles.
• Shipbuilding - 

  for this sector, overcapacity was also signalled as the biggest issue. It is of utmost importance that China and the EU work together to address this problem. Protectionist measures need to be avoided in the necessary restructuring.

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Industry representatives on both sides (Business Europe, EUCBA, BAOSTEEL, GEELY Group and WISCO) addressed the plenary. Both co-chairs agreed it was important to continue to involve them in the work under the dialogue.