The European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, stated this Monday in Beijing that European companies in China are concerned about the new national security laws and question their presence in the country.
“European companies are concerned about the direction China is taking,” said Dombrovskis, stressing that “many of them are questioning their position in that country.”
Visiting the Chinese capital for the China-EU Economic and Trade Dialogue, the official said that “the Chinese government has created a more politicized business environment, expanding the range of instruments to protect national security and development.”
And “this has resulted in less transparency, unequal access to public tenders, discrimination in terms of security standards and requirements, as well as requirements regarding location and data transfer,” he told students at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University.
On the occasion, Dombrovskis cited the national security laws recently approved in China: “The new foreign relations law and the new version of the counterintelligence law are of great concern to our business community,” he stated, justifying that “their ambiguity leaves “too much room for interpretation.”
The European Union Chamber of Commerce’s recent annual report on China stated that European companies in the country face an “increasingly ambiguous” business climate and that the “vagueness” of regulations exposes companies to more “risks”.
Source: TSF
