Photovoltaic industry needs the prime minister to "take the horse"?

On August 3, the European Commission formally issued an official announcement and decided to accept China’s “price commitment”. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce expressed this welcome, which indicates that China-Europe’s largest trade friction in the history of the dispute has been temporarily resolved through negotiations. Many media commentaries believe that Premier Li Keqiang has played a crucial role in the successful negotiations between China and the EU.

"If I didn't call the prime minister, I'm afraid it's still hanging."

Researcher Bai Mingnan, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce's International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute, said that before the Sino-European trade contacts, the specific negotiations for individual products rose to the level of the Prime Minister was extremely rare.

As early as May of this year when Li Keqiang visited Switzerland, he published a signed article in the "New Zurich", emphasizing the principle of "one insistence and two resoluteness": that is, persist in negotiating solutions to problems, firmly oppose trade protectionism, and resolutely safeguard our country. Business interests. These three principles have been well implemented in future negotiations.

Li Keqiang later said in a visit to Germany that these practices of trade protectionism have sent a wrong signal to the international community and harmed people against themselves. China firmly opposes this. We advocate the proper settlement of trade frictions through dialogue and consultation, and firmly safeguard the liberalization and facilitation of world trade and investment.

On the evening of June 3, Li Keqiang said in his speech with the European Commission Chairman Barroso that if this case is handled badly, it will not only affect the interests of China-Europe companies, but it may also trigger a trade war. There is no winner in the trade war, and it is hoped that China and the EU will proceed from the overall situation and resolve trade disputes through negotiations and negotiations. "If the EU is bent on adopting sanctions, China must inevitably counter it."

In an interview with reporters, Any of Mao Chunchun, the head of the Center for Economic Diplomacy at Tsinghua University, said that the prime minister’s telephone “has a great effect. If Li Keqiang is not called, it may be suspended.”

Why does the photovoltaic industry need the prime minister to "take the horse"?

Why in the business negotiations of many individual commodities, only the photovoltaic industry needs the "Prime Ministerial Level" to sit on the negotiation table?

According to public information, the trade friction between China and the EU was once very severe. In 2011, China exported over 35.8 billion U.S. dollars of photovoltaic products, of which the EU accounted for 60%, involving exports exceeding 20 billion U.S. dollars. The double-counter cases of PV in Europe are considered to be the largest trade friction between China and Europe so far, and the largest amount of trade disputes in the world, affecting the survival of more than one thousand enterprises in China and the employment of more than 400,000 people. It also affects the employment of the EU’s 250,000 people. .

Bai Ming believes that as for an export product, due to the degree of market economy and the status quo in the two countries, similar contradictions often cannot be resolved through several negotiations. However, the Prime Minister’s involvement has elevated this specific event to the height of bilateral relations. “As far as the PV incident itself is concerned, if people do double-acting against you, how can you explain the ability to do so is also very small. However, if you place a large platform for the development of bilateral relations between China and the EU, both China and EU must look at the overall situation and look at the issue of photovoltaics in the overall situation. It may be a good solution."

The annual Sino-U.S. strategic and economic dialogue can also see the involvement of the national leaders in trade issues. The issues of the RMB exchange rate, Sino-U.S. trade deficit, and carbon tariff issues have all been discussed in previous dialogues. “There are many examples of China and the United States. The involvement of state leaders may not be seen in China-EU trade relations. This is a particular issue for photovoltaics,” said Bai Ming.

EU continues to investigate China's photovoltaic products

In fact, the background of the occurrence of photovoltaic industry friction can be attributed to the status quo of China's industrial transformation in recent years. As early as September 6 and November 8, 2012, the European Commission officially launched anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on photovoltaic panels, photovoltaic cells and other photovoltaic modules imported from China.

"China becomes a big trading country and the probability of trade disputes will naturally increase." Bai Ming explained to South. In addition, Europe is eager to recover from the debt crisis in Europe, and the United States has re-industrialized, and to a large extent it will crash with Chinese industries.

Bai Ming believes that on the one hand, due to the economic crisis faced by the EU, the uncompetitive industries that the developed countries were prepared to phase out are now “stopping up and continuing to do it,” and there has been an industry backflow, which coincides with some industries in China. On the other hand, China is in the period of trade transformation and upgrading. The industry has been upgrading from labor-intensive to high-value-added and high-tech. There are more and more industries in Europe and the United States, and the coincidence point is the point of conflict.

Although China and the EU temporarily reached a "price promise" agreement and will not adopt temporary taxation measures, the European Commission said yesterday that anti-subsidy investigations on solar cell and related component products from China will continue. The final survey results will be announced by the end of this year.