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Talks on the investment deal began in 2014, but were stuck for
years as the EU said China was failing to make good on promises
to lift curbs on EU investment despite a pledge to open up the
world’s second largest economy.
But tensions in trade relations between the United States and
China may have helped change the Chinese position and bring
about a deal between Beijing and Brussels, officials said.
"The talks are about to be concluded. It's looking good. There
are only some minor details left which need to be hammered out,"
an EU official with knowledge of the talks told Reuters.
"As things stand now, the political agreement between the EU and
China will be sealed on Wednesday."
Other officials close to the talks said that under the deal
China would open up its manufacturing sector to EU companies, as
well as construction, advertising, air transport, maritime
services, telecoms and, to some extent, cloud computing.
"We get much better market access and the protection of our
investments in China. Better market access is something we have
been working for for many years, and the Chinese have made quite
a big step towards us," a senior EU official said.
Talks on investment protection, however, are likely to continue
next year and be concluded later, according to an agreed
timeline.
If there is political agreement on the deal on Wednesday, its
transposition into legal texts could take several months.
Together with the ratification process, that could mean it will
be about year before it is implemented, officials said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular
news briefing on Tuesday that talks had made huge progress and
that China hopes a deal can come to fruition "at an early date".
The negotiations have been conducted by the European Commission,
which handles all external trade issues for the 27-nation bloc,
with the aim of getting the same access for EU firms that
Chinese companies already have to the EU market.
The investment agreement also prohibits forced transfer of
technologies by EU firms that establish themselves in China, and
contains measures to discipline Chinese state-owned companies
when it comes to competition on the Chinese market and rules on
the transparency of state subsidies to Chinese enterprises.
Under the agreement, China will also pledge to subscribe to the
International Labour Organisation's rules on forced labour.
China wanted access to the EU's energy market, but given
sensitivities over national security, the Commission offered
Beijing access to only a small part of the renewable energy
sector, and only on a reciprocal basis, the officials said.
Ambassadors of EU governments in Brussels discussed the
agreement on Monday, and no country had any major problems with
it, the officials said.
Poland suggested the EU should wait to discuss the deal with the
new U.S. administration of President-elect Joe Biden, they
added, but other countries did not share this view.
(Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber in Berlin and Yew Lun
Tian in Beijing; Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Jan
Harvey)
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