Pricing talks fail in China-EU solar trade spat

BEIJING - First-round negotiations designed to ease the current solar panel trade spat between China and the European Union (EU) by agreeing on the export price of the products have failed, Chinese trade body sources involved in the talks said on Wednesday.

China and the EU had agreed that talks on such "price undertaking" would be held between representatives of the Chinese solar sector and the union, Wang Guiqing, deputy head of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, told a press conference here.

At the EU's invitation, the chamber sent a negotiation team and put forward pragmatic price undertaking plans, but the EU side turned them down flat, refusing to answer questions from the Chinese side, he said.

According to a statement on the chamber's website, the EU did not show any sincerity in tackling the problems, leading to the breakdown of the talks.

It said that most Chinese and European solar energy enterprises are looking forward to settling the current problems through negotiations and the EU should act sincerely in further talks with Chinese representatives on price undertaking.

Wang would not reveal when or where the talks took place or any specifics on what was discussed.

Price undertaking basically means exporters raise the export price of a product to avoid the possibility of an anti-dumping duty.

The EU backed a proposal in early May to impose punitive import duties on solar panels from China in order to prevent what it called the "dumping" of Chinese panel products in the European market.

The punitive measures still have to be reviewed by EU member states and be published in the EU's official journal before going into effect.