Change in China’s status could have ‘alarming’ effect on jobs
Deputy general secretary of trade union organisation industriAll Luc Triangle has warned of potentially “dramatic consequences” for manufacturing jobs in Europe if a possible change to China’s status as a trading partner with the European Union (EU) comes into effect.
Speaking in Portugal on October 27 at the third in a series of seminars on the future of the leather industry in Europe, which industriAll is co-organising with the leather industry’s representative body in the EU, COTANCE, Mr Triangle told delegates that negotiations are well under way for the EU to grant ‘Market Economy Status’ (MES) to China. One of the consequences of this change would be that manufacturing industries in Europe would no longer be able to ask the EU to impose anti-dumping measures on their Chinese competitors, even if they could show that imported products were being imported China at falsely cheap prices. The European footwear industry successfully applied for anti-dumping measures against leather shoes imported from China between 2008 and 2011, but MES will free Chinese exporters from similar measures in future.
Quoting a study by US think-tank the Economic Policy Institute, Luc Triangle said MES would lead to an increase in imports into the EU from China of between 25% and 50%. He continued: “If it’s 25% we can say that 187,000 jobs connected to the EU leather sector would potentially be affected. If it’s as high as 50%, the number of jobs connected to the European leather industry that would be affected would rise to 374,000. I know this is alarming. I want to alarm people. There is not nearly enough attention being given to this.”
