MOSCOW (MRC) -- Germany’s chemical industry association VCI (Frankfurt) has welcomed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment between the EU and China, said Chemweek.
It is a significant deal since “China is and will remain an important partner of the German chemical-pharmaceutical industry,” VCI says. The European Commission says that the deal will create a better balance in the EU-China trade relationship. The EU has traditionally been much more open than China to foreign investment, and with this agreement China now commits to “open up” to the EU in several key sectors, it says.
According to the Commission, China has committed to a greater level of market access for EU investors than ever before, and has made commitments to ensure fair treatment for EU companies so they can compete on a better level playing field in China, including in terms of disciplines for state-owned enterprises, transparency of subsidies, and rules against the forced transfer of technologies.
China has also agreed, for the first time, to provisions on sustainable development, including commitments on forced labor and the ratification of the relevant International Labor Organization fundamental conventions, the Commission says.
"Today‘s agreement...will provide unprecedented access to the Chinese market for European investors, enabling our businesses to grow and create jobs. It will also commit China to ambitious principles on sustainability, transparency, and non-discrimination," says Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
As per MRC, China's monoethylene glycol (MEG) stocks fell in mid-December below the 1 million mt mark for the first time since February. Thus, MEG stocks were at 976,000 mt, down by around 20,000-30,000 mt from a week ago.
We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in September 2020 by 6.7% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased by 6.1% year on year in the first nine months of 2020, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-September output. Last month's production of primary polymers decreased to 852,000 tonnes from 888,000 tonnes in August due to shutdowns in Tomsk, Ufa and Kazan. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 7,480,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 16.4% year on year.
MRC