France criticises China's anti-dumping probe into EU wine

The future is very much in Asia for Europe’s wine producers.It's one of the few markets in the world that's really growing gangbusters. I think that it will be very important for the fires of a of a trade war to be dumped down on behalf of the wine producers especially and because you know this is there sales growth for the next five years we're talking about.

The European Union is China's largest trading partner, exports to the block totaling 376 billion dollars last year and for the EU, China is second only to the U.S. representing 188 billion dollars worth of trade a year. When it comes to wine, China imports nearly 300 million liters from Europe. More than half of that is from France so it's not surprising the French are agitated. Sales to china were 1.3 billion dollars last year. The spark to all this, new EU duties on solar panels, they’ve been introduced because European firms have claimed they've been priced out of market by cheap Chinese imports.

Beijing is less than impressed at what it sees as interfering in the market.

We hope the European Union will meet China at some common ground and will not take any measures towards protectionism. Otherwise the EU will only harm others and gain no benefits.

In hitting the French wine industry, the spat has found its way to the very heart of many Europeans. The concern is it might have uncorked a new East-West trade war. Janey Mitchell, BBC News.

Source: bbc.co.uk