Dissecting EU-China Economic Relations

Abstract

This project presents a detailed analysis of EU‐China trade and investment relations, and of the associated dependencies and traditional trade policy concerns. At the macroeconomic level, the intensity of relations exhibits stark contrasts across EU’s member states, for both trade and investment. Trade relations are also strongly imbalanced, and increasingly so. We then characterize exposure to the Chinese market, measured as its weights in producers’ revenue. We show that it is significant for many large firms, and for several sectors, when activity of foreign affiliates in China is considered; in contrast, firm‐level data for France shows that exposure to the Chinese market remains limited when focusing on exports. We finally discuss traditional trade policy issues, linked to market access, forced technology transfers and industrial subsidies, and emphasize that serious concerns remain in these areas.

Kevin Parra Ramirez

PhD candidate in Economics, Sciences-Po Paris &

I am a Ph.D candidate at Sciences-Po Paris under the supervision of Prof. Philippe Martin (Sciences-Po) and Vincent Vicard (Deputy Director of CEPII) and Research Economist at Banque de France