China Retaliates Against EU on Medical-Device Procurement
Starting from July 6, EU-based companies will be excluded from Chinese government procurement for certain medical devices if the value is higher than 45 million yuan , according to a statement from the Ministry of Finance on Sunday. Products made by EU-funded companies in China are not impacted by the curbs, the Ministry of Commerce said in a separate statement.
China's move came after the EU announced plans to restrict Chinese medical device manufacturers from accessing public procurement contracts worth more than €5 million . The measures will restrict Chinese companies from accessing around 60% of the public spending in this field, or around €150 billion, according to an EU official familiar with the plans. The bloc will also allow no more than 50% of inputs from China for successful bids.
Chinese exports of medical devices to the EU have more than doubled between 2015 and 2023, the European Commission said in a statement.
In another sign of tension between Europe and Beijing, the Chinese government intended to shorten a two-day summit with EU leaders this month to just a day, Bloomberg reported on Friday. China also announced anti-dumping duties on European brandy on Friday while exempting major cognac makers that agreed to minimum price levels. The action followed the EU's decision in 2024 to levy duties as high as 45% on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
European countries have complained that the Chinese government has failed to address overcapacity in sectors including steel, unfair subsidies and market access to its economy.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
28 minutes ago
- Mint
Huaweis AI lab denies that one of its Pangu models copied Alibabas Qwen
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, July 7 (Reuters) - Huawei's artificial intelligence research division has rejected claims that a version of its Pangu Pro large language model has copied elements from an Alibaba model, saying that it was independently developed and trained. The division, called Noah Ark Lab, issued the statement on Saturday, a day after an entity called HonestAGI posted an English-language paper on code-sharing platform Github, saying Huawei's Pangu Pro Moe (Mixture of Experts) model showed "extraordinary correlation" with Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 14B. This suggests that Huawei's model was derived through "upcycling" and was not trained from scratch, the paper said, prompting widespread discussion in AI circles online and in Chinese tech-focused media. The paper added that its findings indicated potential copyright violation, the fabrication of information in technical reports and false claims about Huawei's investment in training the model. Noah Ark Lab said in its statement that the model was "not based on incremental training of other manufacturers' models" and that it had "made key innovations in architecture design and technical features." It is the first large-scale model built entirely on Huawei's Ascend chips, it added. It also said that its development team had strictly adhered to open-source license requirements for any third-party code used, without elaborating which open-source models it took reference from. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters was unable to contact HonestAGI or learn who is behind the entity. The release of Chinese startup DeepSeek's open-source model R1 in January this year shocked Silicon Valley with its low cost and sparked intense competition between China's tech giants to offer competitive products. Qwen 2.5-14B was released in May 2024 and is one of Alibaba's small-sized Qwen 2.5 model family which can be deployed on PC and smartphones. While Huawei entered the large language model arena early with its original Pangu release in 2021, it has since been perceived as lagging behind rivals. It open-sourced its Pangu Pro Moe models on Chinese developer platform GitCode in late June, seeking to boost the adoption of its AI tech by providing free access to developers. While Qwen is more consumer-facing and has chatbot services like ChatGPT, Huawei's Pangu models tend to be more used in government as well as the finance and manufacturing sectors.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
33 minutes ago
- Business Standard
June auto sales up 5%, PVs rise 2.5% despite rains and tight liquidity
Retail sales of passenger vehicles witnessed a modest 2.5 per cent rise in June and during the first quarter of the financial year, as heavy rains and tight market liquidity weighed on footfall and conversion, said the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) on Monday. Overall passenger vehicle (PV) sales rose from 290,593 units in June 2024 to 297,722 units in June 2025. All the top six players, excluding Hyundai Motor (down 2 per cent) and Tata Motors (down 8 per cent), saw growth in sales. Market leader Maruti Suzuki India registered a marginal rise of 0.5 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra over 11 per cent, Toyota Kirloskar Motor over 15 per cent, and Kia India around 7 per cent during the month under review. Overall automobile retail sales for June 2025 recorded a healthy 5 per cent year-on-year growth to 2.004 million units, up from 1.91 million in June 2024. Segment-wise, every category closed in the green, with two-wheelers rising 5 per cent, three-wheelers 6 per cent, tractors 9 per cent, and commercial vehicles 7 per cent, alongside 2.5 per cent growth in PVs. 'Last month was better than expected, as we were anticipating slightly lower growth. This may improve further. The positive is that the monsoon has been good, while the US tariff issue and Chinese rare metal issue were major concerns for the industry. As of now, none of the original equipment manufacturers has flagged any supply shortage due to the rare earth crisis,' said C. S. Vigneshwar, president of FADA. Overall automobile retail volume for the first quarter also witnessed a 4.85 per cent rise, with PVs up 2.59 per cent and two-wheelers 5 per cent, alongside three-wheelers rising 12 per cent, commercial vehicles marginally up 1 per cent, construction equipment up 11 per cent, and tractors 6 per cent. 'While two-wheelers showed some early-cycle softness, we remain confident of a robust ramp-up in the coming months as seasonal demand and targeted OEM initiatives take effect,' Vigneshwar added. PV retails slipped 1.49 per cent month-on-month yet delivered a 2.45 per cent year-on-year uplift. 'Heavy rains and tight market liquidity weighed on footfall and conversion, even as elevated incentive schemes and fresh bookings lent selective support. Some dealers indicated that certain PV OEMs have introduced compulsory billing procedures—such as automatic wholesale debits—to meet volume targets; inventory consequently stands at around 55 days. June thus painted a picture of modest but steadfast PV performance amid varied market cues,' he added. Two-wheeler retails dipped 12.48 per cent month-on-month but still notched a 4.73 per cent gain on a year-on-year basis. While festival and marriage-season demand provided a boost, financing constraints and intermittent variant shortages moderated sales. Early monsoon rains and rising electric vehicle penetration also shaped buying patterns. 'Several dealers cited compulsory billing and forced stock lifts—often via auto-debit wholesales—leading to mandated high days of inventory aligned with festival-season targets. Overall, June demonstrated a resilient two-wheeler performance amid mixed market signals,' Vigneshwar said. Commercial vehicle retails declined 2.97 per cent month-on-month while achieving a robust 6.6 per cent year-on-year expansion. Early-month deliveries buoyed volumes before monsoon-induced slowdowns and constrained liquidity dampened enquiries and conversions.
Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump letters and who's talking: State of play as tariff deadline nears
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday his administration is close to finalizing several trade agreements in the coming days and will notify other countries of higher tariff rates by July 9, with the higher rates scheduled to take effect on August promises to work on 90 deals in 90 days, Trump and his team have been able to complete only a limited deal with Britain and a not well-defined agreement with Vietnam. A long-promised deal with India has remained the state of play for several U.S. trading partners facing deadlines this week:U.S. officials said they were making good progress with the 27-member European Union, after its top trade negotiator Maros Sefcovic met with officials in Washington last week. EU diplomats said talks were continuing but they had not achieved a breakthrough as of EU diplomat said the bloc's regulations on social media and other technology companies, stricter than those in the U.S., were not up for negotiation, and a 17% tariff proposed by the U.S. side on agriculture and food exports remained a big officials have said they are open to a U.S. deal that would apply a universal 10% tariff on many of its exports, but want to secure exemptions from sectoral tariffs already in place or planned for pharmaceuticals, alcohol, semiconductors, and commercial aircraft, Bloomberg EU is also pushing for U.S. quotas and exemptions to effectively ease Washington's 25% tariff on automobiles and auto parts, as well as its 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, the report said, citing people familiar with the says it is continuing to seek an agreement with the U.S. while defending its national interest. Japan's tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa held "in-depth exchanges" over the phone with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday and Saturday, the Japanese government discussions came after Trump this week hammered Japan over what he said was Tokyo's reluctance to import U.S.-grown rice, and accusing Japan of engaging in "unfair" autos trade. He has also called on Japan to import more U.S. Monday, Trump said Japan could be among those receiving a tariff letter, and suggested it could face duties of up to 35%.Trump has long promised a trade deal with India, but talks have stalled on disagreements over U.S. tariffs on auto components, steel and agricultural which is facing 26% tariffs on its exports to the U.S., has signaled it is ready to slash its high tariff rates for the U.S. but has not conceded on Washington's demands for opening up the agriculture and dairy Friday, New Delhi also proposed retaliatory duties against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization , saying Washington's separate 25% tariff on automobiles and some auto parts would affect $2.89 billion of India's has offered to cut duties on key imports from the United States to "near zero" and to buy $500 million worth of U.S. wheat as part of its tariff talks to avert a 32% tariff rate. State-owned carrier Garuda Indonesia also plans to buy more Boeing planes as part of a $34 billion pact with U.S. partners due to be signed this by some other countries of excessive red tape, Indonesia eased import licensing requirements for some goods and waived import restrictions on plastics, chemical products and other industrial raw materials on June 30, a goodwill gesture ahead of the July 9 deadline. Indonesia has also invited the U.S. to jointly invest in a state-owned Indonesian minerals project as part of its tariff frequent rounds of talks and some preliminary agreements, South Korea had said it would seek an extension on Trump's July 9 deadline, although talks will continue this Sung-lac, President Lee Jae Myung's national security adviser, plans to visit Washington during July 6-8 to discuss a range of bilateral issues. The country's trade minister, Yeo Han-koo was also due to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and other U.S. Korea already imposes virtually no tariffs on U.S. imported goods under a free-trade agreement, and so the U.S. has focused on other issues, including foreign exchange rates and defense costs. Trump often complains about the cost-sharing arrangement for the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South is making a last-ditch effort to avert a 36% tariff by offering greater market access for U.S. farm and industrial goods, along with increased purchases of U.S. energy and Boeing jets, Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira told Bloomberg News on proposals have included reducing its own tariffs, purchasing more American goods and increasing initial proposal included measures to enhance market access for U.S. exports and tackle transshipment violations, as well as Thai investment that would create U.S. jobs. Bangkok said also pledged to import more U.S. natural gas and cut tariffs on imports of corn from the United is exploring what concessions it can make to avert a 31% tariff rate on goods it ships to the U.S., including granting the U.S. greater market access for produce like seafood and citrus as home to pharmaceutical giants Roche and Novartis, both big U.S. investors, Switzerland also wants assurances that it can avert pharmaceutical tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose at a later date.
