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The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has adopted a new strategy to seek market access in emerging economies, particularly China, relying on closer business cooperation and targeting non-tariff barriers.

The new Market Access Strategy was brought about by the change in the nature of barriers to trade, European Union's Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said.

Modern trade barriers are more likely to be non-tariff and behind-the-border regulatory issues such as poor protection of intellectual property rights, he said.

"In China alone, European businesses estimate the annual cost of market access barriers at 20 billion euros a year in lost opportunities."

The EU is mainly unhappy with the service and technology sectors, not goods trade, when it comes to losses caused by trade barriers, an official from the Ministry of Commerce told China Daily yesterday.

Government agencies from China and the EU are in talks to iron out these problems, the official said.

China is trying to solve the IPR issues, Zhang Ji, a deputy director-general from the ministry, said at a media briefing yesterday.

"It's important for China," he said. "China itself is also the victim of IPR violation."

EU's new market access strategy also aims to establish a close partnership between the European Commission, member states and businesses, and establish EU Market Access Teams in countries outside the EU. Local expertise will make trade barriers easier to identify and tackle, the commission said.

Market access will be assured through a stronger focus on enforcement of existing agreements, both through formal dispute settlement mechanisms that exist in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and bilateral agreements, Mandelson said.

The United States last week filed two complaints at the WTO over copyright piracy and restrictions on the sale of American movies, music and books, saying "inadequate protection" of IPR in China cost its firms billions of dollars a year.

Mandelson earlier told the Xinhua News Agency that the EU would not join the US in its WTO action against China over piracy.

"For now, I have decided that the EU should be an observer in the case rather than a party to it," Mandelson was quoted as saying.

While acknowledging that the Chinese government has made efforts to protect IPR, Mandelson urged more action from the Chinese side to address the concerns of EU investors.

(China Daily April 20, 2007)