China's Commerce Ministry has criticized AB’'s Industrial Acceleration Act for allegedly imposing multiple restrictive requirements on foreign investment.
The European Commission launched the Industrial Accelerator Act in March, which aims to increase demand for low-carbon, European-made technologies and products through a series of measures.
A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce, ’, said Beijing ’ gave official feedback to the EU administration on Friday, but told the public on Monday that the move imposes numerous restrictive requirements on foreign investment and could violate World Trade Organization (WTO) principles.
The “ label of preferential ”AB origin in public procurement and public support policies creates investment barriers and institutional discrimination, the spokesperson said.
He added that China is ready to engage in dialogue with the EU to reduce the impact of ’'s policy on the Asian giant, but if this fails, Beijing may introduce countermeasures to ’ to tightly protect “'s business interests.
European Commission spokesman Olof Gill said the bloc's response to Beijing’'s comments was “simple”.
“Our recommendations are carefully adjusted to achieve specific economic broader goals for our citizens. We communicate with our global partners as much as possible. We are happy to interact and listen to their opinions, ” said.
AB’'s Industrial Acceleration Act targets three strategic sectors: clean technologies, automobile manufacturers and energy-intensive industries such as aluminum, steel and cement.
The proposal includes threshold values such as 70 percent for electric vehicles, 25 percent for aluminum and 25 percent for cement.
Stéphane Séjourné, European Commissioner for Industry, said at the opening: “This (Industrial Accelerator Act) will drive taxpayers' money towards European production, creating jobs, reducing our dependencies and strengthening our economic security and sovereignty.”
The European Commission proposed the Act after the disappearance of more than 200,000 ’ jobs in the European ’ in energy-intensive industries and the automotive sector since 2024’, which envisages 600,000 losses in automobile construction alone over the decade.
The Commission's proposal to solve the problem now needs to be approved by the European Parliament, the legislators of AB’, and the Council of Europe, which represents the member states.
