Union relaxes China import quota regime

Date: 28/03/1996

MORE cheap Chinese goods will be finding their way on to European shelves this year.

After a round of negotiations in working groups, member states' ambassadors agreed yesterday (27 March) to abolish quotas on imported gloves and car radio systems from China and to increase those for glassware, ceramics, porcelain and leather shoes. This is expected to be approved at a meeting of EU tourism ministers on 18 April.

Officials were amazed at how quickly the annual review of the two-year-old Chinese import regime was settled. Lacking a deadline and with nothing to offer southern member states - who generally support the quotas - in return for relaxing the restrictions, the 'liberal' northern member states expected a long haul.

“There was nothing in the proposal for the southerners to attract them, so we needed some goodwill,” said a 'liberal' diplomat. “We got some.”

Many European firms manufacture cheap goods in China and re-import them to the EU, so they lobbied heavily against the quotas, while small companies without a Chinese presence fought to freeze them.

The agreement provides for toy quotas to be frozen, but allows a 20&percent; unused quota - caused by European and Hong Kong toy-makers relocating to other Asian countries - to be rolled over from last year. The glassware quota will increase by 10&percent;, ceramics and porcelain quotas will rise by 5&percent; and all footwear restrictions will be frozen except for leather shoes, where the quota will expand by 2&percent;.

The news will be welcomed by the Beijing authorities, who have not taken kindly to being number one on the EU's anti-dumping black list.

However, only Chinese membership of the World Trade Organisation is likely to stop the country being singled out in trade actions by the EU and the US.