EU and China fail to reach agreement on surplus steel

Officials of the European Union and China failed to reach an agreement on the problem of the surplus production of steel and the change of the EU's position towards the Chinese dumping, despite a convergence of positions, on June 2, Reuters reports.

– We were able to narrow the positions but we are not yet there – stated the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, at the press conference following the meeting of European officials with the Chinese Premiere Li Keqiang.

The topic of the meeting was the problem of the surplus production of steel and China's request to no longer be treated as a special case within the World Trade Organization (WTO), 15 years after joining.

An unnamed source present at the meeting said for Reuters that China had refused to include phrases related to the manner of solving the problem of surplus production in the concluding statement, which means that the EU-China summit has failed to produce a final statement for the second year in a row.

As the biggest global producer and consumer of steel, China promised last year that it would reduce its production, following complaints by European producers that cheap Chinese imports were flooding the European market.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION Bruxelles

World Trade Organization Geneva

European Commission

Jean Claude Juncker

Li Keqiang

World Trade Organization

WTO

surplus production of steel

steel

production of steel

Chinese steel

import of Chinese steel