TMTPost -- China lodges appeals at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over provisional additional trariffs on electric vehicles (EVs) imposed by the European Union.

Credit：Xinhua News Agency

To defend the development rights and interests of the EV industry and global green transformation cooperation, China appealed to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism over the EU's provisional countervailing measures on EVs, the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM) announced Friday. 

The EU's preliminary ruling lacks a factual and legal basis, seriously violates WTO rules and undermines global cooperation on climate change, the ministry said.China has urged the EU to immediately correct its wrong practices and work together to protect the stability of China-EU economic and trade cooperation as well as the EV industrial chain and supply chain, it said.

The European Commission announced on July 4 it imposed provisional countervailing duties of up to 37.6%, on top of the ordinary BEV import duty of 10%, on imports of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from China. The commission concluded through an anti-subsidy investigation that the BEV value chain in China benefits from unfair subsidization, which is causing a threat of economic injury to EU BEV producers.

Specifically, the additional individual duties on three sampled Chinese EV makers, would be 17.4% for BYD, 19.9% for Geely and 37.6% for SAIC. That means the EU decided to levy a little bit less duties on Geely and SAIC-made EVs since its proposed rates pre-disclosed on June 12 are 20% and 38.1%, respectively, while BYD, China’s largest EV manufacturer, faces the same tariff rate as EU’s original proposal disclosed more than a month ago.

According to a statement of the European Commission, other BEV producers in China, which cooperated in the investigation but have not been sampled, are subject to the 20.8% weighted average duty, marginally downgraded from the commission’s original proposed 21%, while all other BEV producers in China that did not cooperate in the investigation face an extra duty of 37.6%, compared with the originally proposed 38.1%.  

The European Commission suggested the long-term definitive duties will be effective no later than four months ago, if approved by EU countries. All the abovementioned provisional duties are applied for a maximum duration of four months starting from July 5. Within the four-month timeframe, a final decision must be taken on definitive duties, through a vote by EU Member States, and when adopted, this decision would make the duties definitive for a period of five years, the commission said.

Talks between China and the EU were initiated last month as the European Commission continues its anti-subsidy investigation. China has threatened to hit back with anti-dumping measures against EU pork and dairy imports amid EV tariff threat. The MOFCOM opened an anti-dumping investigation into certain pork and pig by-products imported from the EU from June 17. If the EU’s dumping practice has been confirmed after China’s preliminary investigation and has caused damage to Chinese domestic industries, temporary anti-dumping measures might be taken in accordance with WTO rules and China's anti-dumping regulations, the MOFCOM spokesperson He Yadong responded a question about whether China will levy temporary tariffs on pork imports from the EU last month.

When asked about whether China will open anti-dumping probe on EU dairy imports, the spokesperson He said that the investigation agency will review applications filed by domestic industries in accordance with the law. "If the conditions for filing a case are met, the investigation agency will start the filing procedure, and disclose and release announcements in accordance with the law," said He.