Foreign firms 'not probe targets'

EU Ambassador to china confident bilateral investment treaty will be signed

The new European Union ambassador to China said it does not make sense to say the country is targeting foreign companies for antitrust investigations based on just one or two cases.

Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, speaking on Sept 16 at his first news conference since arriving in Beijing the previous week, said the EU is looking forward to a constructive dialogue on antitrust issues and will push forward a bilateral investment treaty during his tenure in China.

"When you look at Chinese policy objectives and the need to bring about the transition to a more balanced economy, it would not really make much sense to scare away foreign investors and the economic actors who could make an important contribution to achieving this change," Schweisgut said.

Premier Li Keqiang, speaking at the 2014 Summer Davos forum in Tianjin recently, allayed fears about bias against foreign companies and said the doors of the Chinese economy will always be open and the process of reform will not be reversed.

Schweisgut said he welcomed the premier's commitment to reform and said, regarding China's antitrust probes, "we need to look at how the situation can be judged in a larger context".

The EU will closely follow the Chinese investigations while continuing to have a constructive dialogue with Chinese authorities to push forward principles of transparency, the right of defense and objectivity, the ambassador said.

Francesco Sisci, a senior researcher at the Center of European Union Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, agreed it is too early to pass judgment on Chinese antitrust investigations.

"Certain special products have carved themselves niche markets, which allow them to fetch higher prices in foreign markets," Sisci said. "In this respect, to clamp down on such activities is a good thing, but much attention will be paid to further investigations going forward."

Schweisgut was the Austrian ambassador to China from 2003 to 2007. In the seven years since he was last in Beijing, he said the EU-China relationship has advanced in all fields and now constitutes "a strategic partnership that shows we are indispensable partners".

Another priority of his tenure will be the bilateral investment treaty, with the fourth round of negotiations coming up soon.

muchen@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 09/19/2014 page3)