Control distortion complains
Mechanical engineering wants help against unfair competition from China
Subscribe and low production costs in China create unfair competitive conditions from the perspective of German mechanical engineers. Politicians should therefore intervene, their industry association demands.
In the hard competition with Chinese companies, the German mechanical engineers call for support from politics. In addition to technological progress and lower production costs, Chinese companies also benefited to a significant extent of subsidies from the there, said the President of the Association of German Machine and Plant Construction (VDMA), Bertram Kawlath, in Frankfurt. They also delivered products to Europe that disregarded partly applicable technical regulations. “China doesn’t play fairly, and politics has to react to that,” said Kawlath.
What is important are an united and competitive location in Europe and the implementation of the same competitive conditions on the internal market. The export-oriented industry for compensation tariffs on imports of third countries in advantage if they violate the EU’s anti-dumping or anti-subscription regulations.
Industry demands stronger market surveillance
Europe also has to strengthen its market surveillance, the VDMA demands. Regular violations against EU legal regulations should be sanctioned. The manufacturers in question should also have to have their products certified by a third party before exporting to Europe. “In the event of repeated violations, this export to Europe should basically be banned,” says the association’s position paper.
Furthermore, the VDMA warns the structure of strategically relevant technologies in Europe in order to avoid dependencies on China. This could be flanked by industrial politics through criteria in public tenders, such as the reliability of suppliers.
Exports in the industry shrunk to China
Competition pressure from China was also reflected in the export figures for the first quarter: From January to March, the value of German machine deliveries to China decreased by 12.2 percent to 3.99 billion euros in the same period last year.
dpa
Source: Stern
