China has announced lower duties on imports of pork and pig by-products from the European Union following the conclusion of a year-long anti-dumping investigation.
Effective Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that duties ranging from 4.9% to 19.8% will be implemented over a five year period.
This is a significant reduction from the temporary anti-dumping tariffs of 62.4% EU pork producers were previously hit with in September.
Trade tensions between the regions ramped up Brussels slapped tariffs of up to 45% on electric vehicles imported from China in October last year. This led to Beijing denouncing it as protectionist.
Following this, China launched an anit-dumping probe in June last year as part of a countermeasure to the EU’s punitive measures against its EV sector.
“The ruling report indicates that the relevant pork and pork by-products imported from the EU were being dumped, causing substantive harm to China’s domestic industry,” the commerce ministry statement said.
The EU is the world’s largest pork exporter, selling around 13% of its production overseas, with China being the biggest buyer.
China’s pork imports from the EU peaked at €7.4 billion in 2020 when Beijing turned to imports to meet domestic demand after its pig farms were devastated by swine flu.
China’s trade surplus has reached a record of more than US$1 trillion for the year as of November.
