The European Union and China need to “develop a more balanced and reciprocal economic relationship” in light of China’s “proactive and state-driven industrial and economic policies,” the European Commission said in a report on the EU-China strategic outlook, dated March 12. Echoing recent U.S. criticism of China, the report calls out China’s favoring of its own domestic champions, including when enforcing intellectual property rights and other domestic laws, as well as investment restrictions and forced technology transfer. A more balanced relationship “can be achieved through various means: by working together with China in international fora to upgrade the rules and by making decisive progress in bilateral negotiations, but also by making use of tools such as the recently modernised and strengthened trade defence instruments,” the report said.

In the March 18 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

Counterfeit goods made up as much as 6.8 percent of total imports into the European Union in 2016, up from 5 percent just three years earlier, mirroring a worldwide increase in trade in counterfeits, the European Union Intellectual Property Office said in a new report. China remained the world’s top shipper of counterfeits, though Hong Kong plays an increasing role as a transit point, and “India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates remain among the top provenance economies,” the report said.

The European Chemicals Agency reminded companies that they still “need to prepare for a UK withdrawal without a transition period, that is, one without an agreement ratified by both sides ensuring that the withdrawal happens in an orderly manner,” in a press release dated March 18. ECHA has published instructions for what actions companies need to take, such as transferring their REACH registrations from a U.K.-based registrant to a registrant based in an EU member state. “The Agency would like to emphasise that while UK companies can initiate a REACH asset transfer in ECHA’s IT tools at any time before the date of withdrawal, the successor company in the EU-27 should only accept the transfer after the actual date of the withdrawal,” it said.

The United Kingdom signed trade continuity agreements with Fiji and Papua New Guinea to continue trading on the same terms after the U.K.’s planned withdrawal from the European Union, the U.K.’s Department for International Trade said. “The agreement allows businesses to trade as freely as they do now, without any additional barriers or tariffs. It eliminates all tariffs on all goods imported from Fiji and Papua New Guinea into the UK and will gradually remove around 80% of tariffs on British exports to these countries,” it said.

The European Court of Auditors on March 14 issued a report on the European Union’s system for monitoring organic products, including imports. According to the report, EU member state monitoring of organic products and importers is still incomplete, and import supervision could be improved by better cooperation between member states and with the exporting countries. The report also discusses changes to the EU’s equivalence scheme that will set more stringent requirements for countries allowed to export organic products to the EU, as well as the EU’s work improving its monitoring of organic exporters to the EU, particularly in China.

The Ukrainian parliament recently gave preliminary approval to a draft law creating an authorized economic operator (AEO) trusted trader program, according to an alert from the law firm CMS. If approved, AEO status will give Ukrainian companies a simplified customs declaration procedure, a shortened form of import declaration, priority for customs procedures and permission to use a special traffic lane for truck border crossings, the alert said. To qualify, the company must be a registered resident entity in Ukraine, have no criminal records related to commercial activity (including company officials), have not committed repetitive or systematic violations of customs rules, and be financially solvent. A second and final vote in parliament is required before the bill is passed, CMS said.

The United Kingdom is making changes to its transit procedures to prepare for its planned withdrawal from the European Union, HM Revenue and Customs said in guidance posted March 13. Though the U.K. will lose access to the EU’s Union Transit procedures, which govern transit shipments between EU member states, it has come to an agreement with the EU to join the Common Transit Convention, which applies to the EU, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Turkey, North Macedonia and Serbia.

In the March 15 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

The United Kingdom’s HM Revenue and Customs is delaying the effective date of a new policy interpretation that bars customs agents from using their own simplified procedure authorizations for customers that they directly represent. In a memo issued in August 2018, HMRC confirmed that authorization holders for certain simplified procedures -- including inward processing, outward processing relief, temporary admission and private customs warehousing -- must make declarations using these simplified procedures in their own name. “Where an agent wants to use their own simplified authorisation on behalf of a customer, they need to represent that customer indirectly, as the declaration must be made in the name of the person who holds the authorisation,” HMRC had said. The policy had been set to take effect April 1, at which point HMRC would have been set to “consider civil penalty action” for violations. But given that “there are multiple pressures on UK import and export business at this time,” HMRC will now allow until Oct. 1, 2019, for the change to take effect.