China launches anti-dumping probe into EU pork imports

Beijing has opened an anti-dumping investigation into EU pork imports, escalating trade tensions less than a week after Brussels said it would impose tariffs on electric vehicle shipments from China.

China’s ministry of commerce said the investigation — which the European agricultural industry said would hit farmers in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium the hardest — would focus on EU pork imports in 2023 and last up to a year, though it could be extended by six months.

“In recent years, the European Union has been dumping large quantities of low-priced pork and pig by-products into China, impacting . . . China’s pork and pig by-products industry, as well as the related farming sector and farmers,” the China Animal Agriculture Association said in its application to the ministry requesting the investigation.

The announcement follows Brussels’ notification to carmakers on Wednesday that it would raise tariffs to up to almost 50 per cent on some producers as part of an anti-subsidy probe into Chinese EVs.

By launching the anti-dumping probe into pork, which follows an earlier action targeting brandy, Beijing hopes to pressure individual European governments to force the European Commission to scrap the EV tariffs before they are confirmed by July 4.

Member states will also get a vote on the tariffs, probably in late October. The tariffs could be blocked if 15 states vote against them.

Berlin has already said that it opposes the EV tariffs. Spain has equivocated, while France has strongly backed them.

“It’s a politically designed retaliation. The EU pork sector is pretty fragile and China is [the] dominant export country,” said Fredrik Erixon, director of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy.

“It also hits France and the Netherlands, the former at a politically sensitive time, which China is aware of,” he said, referring to the French election.

The European Commission said it was analysing the case and would “intervene as appropriate”.

The EU has been hit by farmers’ protests over the past year. Food producers complaining about squeezed incomes and environmental requirements have blocked roads and ransacked lorries to destroy imported produce. Brussels has eased regulation to appease the demonstrators.

The EU has opened its own anti-dumping investigations into a number of Chinese imports in recent weeks, the latest, on Monday, covering decor paper, which is used to coat furniture and flooring. 

The China Animal Agriculture Association’s figures attached to the ministry’s announcement showed that EU export volumes fell from 3.2mn tonnes in 2020 to 1.34mn tonnes in 2023. European pork’s market share in China also declined, from 5.52 per cent in 2020 to 1.76 per cent last year.

Patrick Pagani, deputy director-general of Copa Cogeca, the EU agricultural industry body, said it was “not acceptable” that farmers were caught “in the crossfire of the trade disputes concerning other sectors”.

“There are no actual anti-dumping practices that can be attributed to our pig meat sector in Europe, but we have no choice now but to take part in this investigation, which is a costly process and will most likely in any case lead to loss of market in China.” 

Belgium sent its first shipment of pork products to China since 2018 in February after Beijing lifted an embargo on Belgian pork due to an outbreak of African swine fever. EU pig producers earned €2.5bn in 2023.

The trade war with the EU comes as China’s economy is staging a mixed recovery. In May, China’s industrial production expanded 5.6 per cent year on year in May, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday, lagging behind an analyst forecast of 6 per cent in a Reuters poll and April’s growth rate of 6.7 per cent.

Additional reporting by William Sandlund in Hong Kong