Europe’s trade chief will travel to Beijing for high-level discussions on Friday amid signs that the EU and China are seeking to cool an escalating trade fight over solar panels.
Karel De Gucht, the EU trade commissioner, is to hold his first meeting with China’s new commerce minister, Gao Huacheng, under the auspices of an annual “joint committee” to ease trade irritants.
The solar dispute is not on the formal agenda, although Shen Danyang, a commerce ministry spokesman, said on Tuesday that the two sides would “seriously review what happened over the past year in bilateral trade relations and study how to resolve problems, including the dispute over photovoltaic trade”.