LONDON (Reuters) – Britain does not plan to follow the European Union in imposing tariffs on imports of electric vehicles from China as UK businesses have not raised a complaint to be investigated, British trade minister Jonathan Reynolds said on Monday.
Earlier this month, EU member states narrowly backed import duties on Chinese-made EVs of up to 45%, meant to counter what the European Commission says are unfair subsidies from Beijing to Chinese manufacturers. Beijing denies unfair competition.
Reynolds said there had not been any complaints from local industry to Britain’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), and indicated he would not seek to follow the bloc in pursuing tariffs, adding his “primary concern” was thriving and open export markets for British producers.
“I do have the power as the Secretary of State to make that referral … We keep it under close analysis, but I think it’s important our industry is different, and as of yet industry itself hasn’t asked for that referral to the TRA,” Reynolds told reporters on the sidelines of the International Investment summit.
Reynolds said he didn’t believe that relations with China were in any sort of golden era – as the government a decade ago had lauded – but said Britain was an outlier in how little it had done to build trade links with China, and engagement was a good thing.
But he said Britain’s priority were trade talks with India and the Gulf Co-operation Council in the Middle East as it restarts negotiations that were paused for a July election.
“We’ve got a new round of talks with the Gulf Co-operation Council very soon, maybe as soon as next week. And similarly with India, that’s a priority as well,” he said, declining to put a deadline on trade talks.
“It’s not necessarily an easy thing to explain the time scale on. But the Gulf and India are the priority.”
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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