by Casey Hall, Lucy Craymer and Mei Mei Chu

SHANGHAI/WELLINGTON (Reuters) – European food companies, from dairy producers to pork exporters, are concerned about possible retaliatory measures from China after Wednesday’s decision by the European Union (EU) to impose customs duties on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.

On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry said domestic companies were preparing to ask authorities to conduct anti-competition investigations into some EU dairy and pork imports.

“China’s domestic industries have the right to file investigation requests to safeguard normal market competition and their legitimate rights and interests,” a ministry spokesperson said.

The EU is the second largest exporter of dairy products to China, just behind New Zealand and ahead of Australia, according to Chinese customs data. It mainly exports whey powder, cream and fresh milk.

Within the EU, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Denmark are the countries whose dairy industry is most exposed to the Chinese market.

France, the Netherlands and Denmark are also important suppliers of pork, along with Spain.

“We are worried,” declared the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, to journalists who questioned him about possible action by China against imports of pork from the EU.

“Even if the pork sector is doing well at the moment economically, we know that there are a whole bunch of parts of pork which are not consumed in Europe and which need to find outlets and China is an important outlet,” he explained.

Even before the EU formalized customs duties on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, some European officials had warned of the risk of reprisals on European food products.

At the end of April, during a visit to China, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, told Reuters that he intended “to avoid as much as possible that agriculture pays the price for the problems encountered in other sectors.

“The position of the European Union is that free trade in food is a very important instrument for guaranteeing food security at global level,” he said.

In January, China launched an anti-dumping procedure on all spirits, including cognac, imported into the country from the EU, a measure already seen as a retaliation for the EU procedure on vehicles Chinese electrics.

(Written by Casey Hall in Shanghai, Mei Mei Chu in Beijing and Lucy Craymer in Wellington, with contributions from Joe Cash and Gus Trompiz; Blandine Hénault for the )

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