On July 6th, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expressed strong dissatisfaction with the temporary anti-subsidy tax rate disclosed by the European Commission. On July 5th, SAIC Motor Corporation and the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products respectively issued statements expressing strong dissatisfaction with the European Union's actions. In the view of Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the China Passenger Car Association, the EU's investigation into China's electric vehicles is a "normal stress response" after China's independent electric vehicle has become powerful.
On July 6, China's government and industry associations and related companies expressed strong dissatisfaction with the EU's imposition of temporary anti-subsidy tariffs on electric car products produced in China and exported to the European market.
On July 6th, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers issued a statement saying that in the disclosure of information about China's electric vehicle anti-subsidy investigation by the European Commission in June, it disregarded the facts and insisted that China's electric vehicle industry had a high amount of "subsidy". It caused damage to the EU's electric vehicle industry and proposed to impose temporary anti-subsidy taxes on electric vehicles exported from China. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers regrets this and firmly refuses to accept it.
"We hope that the European Commission will not treat the current phase of trading of complete vehicles as a long-term threat, not politicize economic and trade issues, and abuse trade relief measures to avoid damage and distortion of the global auto industry supply chain, including in the EU, to maintain a fair, non-discriminatory and predictable market environment." The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers stated that they hope the European automotive industry can think rationally and take active action to jointly maintain the current situation of reasonable competition and mutual benefit, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the global automotive industry before the final measures are implemented in November 2024.
On July 4, after initiating an anti-subsidy investigation for 9 months, the European Commission officially imposed temporary anti-subsidy taxes of 17.4%-37.6% on pure electric cars (excluding plug-ins) imported from China. Compared with the tax rates disclosed on June 12th, the final tax rate was slightly reduced compared to the temporary tariff initial ruling. Among the three companies sampled, BYD's 17.4% tax rate remained unchanged, while Geely and SAIC Motor Corporation were downgraded from the previous 20% and 38.1% to 19.9% and 37.6%, respectively. The tariff on other Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers participating in the investigation but not sampled, and other uncooperative companies, has also been adjusted slightly.
In the face of this temporary tariff collection period starting from July 5th, which lasts for up to four months, NIO Inc., which has already conducted business in Europe, made a statement first. "NIO closely monitors and follows up on the progress and measures of the EU's anti-subsidy investigation. At this stage, NIO will maintain the pricing of its products in the European market and evaluate its market strategy according to the progress of the tariff policy." Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO Inc., told ChinaLink reporter on July 4th, "In Europe, we will continue to serve NIO users. We believe that appropriate market competition is beneficial to users and hope to reach a solution with the EU before the final measures are implemented in November 2024."
Subsequently, SAIC Motor Corporation and the China Machinery Industry Import and Export Chamber of Commerce each issued statements expressing strong dissatisfaction with the EU's actions.
In its statement on July 5th, SAIC Motor Corporation stated that in order to effectively protect its legitimate rights and interests and the interests of global customers, it will officially request the European Commission to hold a hearing on China's anti-subsidy tax on electric vehicles to exercise its right of defense in accordance with the law. The defense content includes: the European Commission's anti-subsidy investigation involves commercial sensitive information, such as the investigation requiring cooperation to provide chemical formulas related to batteries, etc., which exceeds the normal investigation scope. The European Commission has made wrong judgments on the identification of subsidies, such as including the new energy vehicle purchase subsidies given to domestic consumers in the calculation of subsidy rates sold in the European Union. The European Commission ignored some of the information and defense opinions submitted by SAIC Motor Corporation during the investigation, based on the so-called "failure to cooperate with the investigation" stipulated in Article 28 of the Basic Rules on Anti-Subsidies, which inflated the subsidy rates of multiple projects.
"The European Commission's initial report explained the relevant contents of the case procedure, subsidies, damage and threat of harm, causal relationship, overall interests of the EU, among others. Many of these judgments lack objectivity and impartiality, and some procedural practices lack transparency." In the statement on July 5th, the China Machinery Industry Import and Export Chamber of Commerce expressed strong dissatisfaction and listed the EU's "improper behavior": first of all, as the Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly emphasized before, the European Commission did not adopt the principle that the largest export volume should be used for Chinese exporters. The representativeness of the production and sales volume of the sampled enterprises in the EU industry is low, which leads to fundamental representativeness deviation of the price impact analysis of the European Commission and the data collection of the microeconomic indicators of the EU industry. Secondly, the information requested by the European Commission is very wide and strict, and the tendency of preset conclusions is very obvious. Although the Chinese sampled companies have done their best to cooperate with the investigation of the European Commission, the European Commission still imposed high tax rates on sampled companies based on the so-called "best available information". Thirdly, the European Commission violated its obligation of affirmative evidence and objective review in price comparison. In the price impact analysis, the European Commission did not consider the export prices of foreign-funded enterprises to the European Union, nor did it consider the brand premiums, physical differences, and segmented markets of electric vehicles. Fourthly, the European Commission did not conduct an objective analysis of the damage indicators of the EU industry. The initial ruling report shows that the EU industry’s market share is stable, prices are rising, and most of the important indicators are improving, indicating that the damage is not imminent and cannot be determined as a threat of harm. Fifth, the European Commission made a wrong judgment on the causal relationship. Finally, the European Commission’s procedures lack transparency.
"As the industry defender in this investigation, the China Machinery Industry Federation will continue to represent China's electric vehicle industry to carry out response work and resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese electric vehicle companies through various means," said the China Machinery Industry Import and Export Chamber of Commerce.
"In the EU's 'Official Journal', the most frequent terms used to respond to China's questions and claims are 'rejected', and it explains that many companies have been anonymized in order to prevent 'retribution', and why the largest producer by production and sales volume was not included in the sample for investigation," said Tian Yongqiu, a senior analyst in the automotive industry. "In general, the European Commission has broad discretion in this matter."
"In the view of Gu Xianghua, Secretary-General of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the EU's investigation into China's electric vehicles is a "normal stress response" after China's strong independent electric vehicle development. "The EU's move clearly violates market laws and international rules, not only directly harming the vital interests of European consumers, but also hinder the accelerated transformation of Europe's auto industry, while destroying the fair competition environment of international trade, and harmful to the world's trend of energy conservation and carbon reduction," said Gu Xianghua. The EU's anti-subsidy name for Chinese electric vehicles is completely wrong, and it will have a certain impact on China's automobile exports in the short term, but in the long run, it cannot stop the firm determination of Chinese car companies to go global."
According to the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the entire vehicle sales volume exported to the European market from China in 2023 was 0.825 million units, a year-on-year increase of 162%; in the first five months of this year, this number was 0.444 million units, a year-on-year increase of 76%, which has been showing strong growth for three consecutive years.