#Title

EU seeks to put brakes on China
FROM PAGE B4
“This is sufficiently aggressive for it to have been carefully thought through,” Elvire Fabry, a researcher at Jacques Delors Institute, told AFP.
Without presuming the probe’s outcome, Fabry said she did not believe the commission would have “taken such a step without already having a solid basis”, pointing to China’s massive subsidies in many parts of its economy.
The driving force behind von der Leyen’s announcement was the EU’s bitter experience with China over solar panels.
During her speech last week, she pointed to firms pushed out by cheaper Chinese solar panels that flooded the European market in the late 2000s, while others were forced to file for bankruptcy.
The car industry is significant for Europe, providing direct and indirect jobs to around 14 million Europeans, some 6.1 percent of all EU employment.
China’s carmakers are a growing threat, and this year it became the world’s largest exporter of cars, overtaking Japan for the first time.
The share of Chinese electric car brands in Europe is surging, reaching 6.1 percent between January and July this year, according to automotive data company Jato Dynamics, rising from a low base of 0.5 percent in 2019.
China’s success is in large part due to its early investment in batteries and its domination of critical raw materials used in much clean tech.
The EU is also rushing to pass a law to move away from relying on China for key materials such as lithium as part of a broader approach to bring more production to Europe and diversify its trading partners.
Not everyone is convinced that China is guilty of unfair practices.
Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, an expert at the Center Automotive Research in Germany, accused von der Leyen of making “unfounded” claims, stressing that China’s success was due to “long-term” thinking and a “very strong” focus on developing electric cars.
France pushed for a probe because “the French car industry is almost invisible in China”, Dudenhoeffer said, accusing Paris of seeking to protect its manufacturers at the expense of Germany’s carmakers, since 40 percent of their sales are in China.
The EU will decide over the next 13 months whether to slap tariffs on Chinese electric cars above the standard 10 percent EU rate if it concludes there are unfair practices.
“If everything becomes very confrontational and tariffs, etc are applied immediately, that would be something to which China could react and therefore trade links between Europe and China could be put at stake,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank.
But if Europe manages this in a more cooperative manner, “this wouldn’t necessarily harm European industry”, he added.
According to Bruegel, the commission has launched 342 subsidy investigations since 2008 against imports from China, of which 101 led to no countervailing duties.
“It is not to be taken for granted that an investigation will actually result in a procedure,” Tagliapietra said.

US-Bangla Airlines
FROM PAGE B4
Another lacking is Bangladesh doesn’t have a flying school, he said.
US-Bangla Airlines is going to set up one engineering school and one flying school by this year. The company has also taken an initiative to create 100 cadet pilots at its own cost.
“We have already sent 22 students to the US so that they can receive quality education and training to become pilots,” Mamun added.