Press Release: Mandelson: global boom in export restrictions for raw materials must be reversed

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson announced that European trade policy will take a tougher line in tackling an explosion of export duties and other restrictions for raw materials among the EU's trading partners. Speaking to representatives of European industry and member states in Brussels, Mandelson said that recent rises in commodity prices had also produced a proliferation of dozens of new export taxes and other restrictions on raw material exports in the global economy. He said that ensuring fair access for European manufacturers to the raw materials on which they are critically dependent will now be a key priority of EU trade policy. Mandelson argued that sixty years of progressive openness in import markets for goods was being eroded by a boom in export duties for raw materials.