Brussels and Beijing will “now intensify their work” to deliver “tangible results” by October, says EU's trade chief
EU and China have set up a joint forum to manage trade relations, in a bid to ease growing frictions between the bloc and the world’s second-largest economy.
The so-called Trade and Investment Consultations (TIC) will be a “dedicated platform” for European and Chinese officials to discuss trade and investment ties, export controls, intellectual property rights, and World Trade Organization (WTO) reform, Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade commissioner, told reporters after an all-day meeting with Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, in Brussels on Monday.
Both sides also agreed to “immediately” create a joint mechanism to monitor EU-China trade flows and help protect EU firms from any “sudden surge” of Chinese imports, Šefčovič said.
The TIC is a “dedicated platform to tackle in a structured way the issues we have identified together”, Šefčovič noted. He added that Brussels and Beijing will “now intensify their work” to deliver “tangible results” by October and that he would personally visit China this autumn.
