The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Monday said it would rule on a case filed by China on whether the country should be treated as market economy.
Diplomats said this in Geneva at a meeting.
In its complaint against the European Union, China demanded to be defined as free market economy, a status that would protect China from punitive tariffs.
As soon as the communist Asian country joined the WTO in 2001, other members of the free-trade organisation promised they would start trading with China as an equal in December 2016.
Until then, WTO countries were able to levy punitive taxes on imports from China if they were sold below Chinese market prices, based on the assumption that the state’s large role in the economy gave Chinese industries unfair advantages.
Brussels tried to block the establishment of a dispute settlement mechanism at the WTO, arguing that such a step is premature because the EU is currently working on new trade legislation regarding China.
China retorted at a WTO meeting that the EU had had enough time to define a new policy.
“The European Union has been aware of more than fifteen years of the date on which China’s non-market status would expire,’’ China’s WTO delegation said in a statement.
At the meeting, the U.S. sided with the EU, calling on China to prove that it really was a market economy.
Recently, Washington launched an investigation on Chinese aluminium foil, to establish whether China dumps its products on the U.S. market below domestic market prices. (dpa/NAN).