China launches probe into EU wines

China announced the launch of an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into wines imported from Europe, a day after the European Union imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese solar products.

The investigation is aimed at answering the petition of domestic wine producers last year. Chinese wine manufacturers claimed that EU's wine imports had received unfair government subsidies and were causing damage on China's wine industry, according to a statement by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

MOFCOM said China has always been cautious about the use of trade remedy measures. "We have noticed a relatively fast growth of wine imports from the EU in recent years and we will conduct a strict investigation in accordance with relevant laws," said the ministry.

China imported a total of 430 million liters of wine last year, in which 290 million liters were imported from the EU, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China. France, Spain and Italy are the top three EU wine exporters to China. France alone exported 170 million liters of wine to China last year.

MOFCOM's move came right after Karel De Gucht, the European Union Trade Commissioner, announced that the EU would impose a tariff of 11.8 percent starting from June 6 to August 6 and further increase the tariff to 47.6 percent unless EU reaches a settlement with China within the next 60 days.

In another statement posted the same day, MOFCOM said China firmly opposes the European Commission's decision and China has showed the utmost sincerity and made great efforts to try to resolve the issue through talks.

Economic ties are an important foundation of the China-EU relationship and China is unwilling to see trade frictions in the solar panel industry affect the overall China-EU relation, said the ministry's spokesperson Shen Danyang in the statement.

China exported solar panel to the tune of 21 billion euros (US$27 billion) to the EU in 2011, accounting for 70 percent of the total output. The probe into the Chinese solar panel imports is the largest of the 18 ongoing trade disputes initiated by the EU against China.