The automobile industry is an important pillar industry of the national economy and an important area of economic and trade cooperation between China and the EU. The cooperation between the two sides has a good foundation, remarkable results, and is interdependent. Due to changes in the cooperation landscape and the international environment, cooperation between the two sides is currently facing new challenges. Recently, some EU member states have made one-sided and false accusations against China such as "overcapacity" and even promoted the introduction of new trade tools called "overcapacity", which violates the objective facts of the industry and is not conducive to China-EU economic and trade cooperation. Both sides need to consolidate the existing good foundation for cooperation, overcome the pains of development, understand each other, support each other, innovate cooperation, and achieve win-win results.

Production capacity is the result of investors matching industrial competitiveness with market demand. It is essentially market-driven and market-selected. Therefore, trade volume and production capacity issues should be viewed from an objective, rational and development perspective. The core of capacity expansion and layout optimization in China's automobile industry is to match the huge and continuously released domestic consumer market, as well as the product structure upgrade brought about by low carbonization and intelligence. China's domestic car ownership per 1,000 people is only 260 vehicles, which is still low. As China continues to advance in modernization, residents 'income and living standards have steadily improved, and green and smart car consumption upgrades and new car purchases are strong, creating huge domestic demand potential. Commodities from economies that are undergoing rapid transformation will be sought after in the global market. China's automobile industry took the lead in iterative upgrades. It not only supplied domestic consumption with green, low-carbon, high-quality and outstanding cost-effective travel products, but also gradually gained widespread recognition from consumers in overseas markets such as the European Union. It continued to enrich global automobile consumption choices and contributed to the global green and low-carbon travel system. The construction of China's strength.

Openness, integration, mutual benefit and win-win results are the mainstream trends in the development of international trade and the core cornerstone of the sustainable development of global industries. China's automobile market and industry is a huge market that is completely open to the world. Import tariffs on complete vehicles are 15%, and tariffs on parts and components are 6%. Major automobile brands around the world generally participate in competition in the China market through import or localized production. This open and competitive market environment promotes continuous innovation and promotes the development of China's automobile industry. The competitive level of China's automobile industry confirms the importance of an open, competitive and innovative market environment. Currently, the global automobile industry is in a critical window period of transformation and upgrading. Technological innovation, business iteration, and low-carbon transformation are all inseparable from global collaborative cooperation. As a highly global pillar industry, the automobile industry can only break through development bottlenecks and share the dividends of transformation by adhering to openness, inclusiveness, and collaborative governance.

After more than 40 years of cooperation, the China-EU automobile industry has formed a global cooperation pattern of deep binding, complementary advantages, and mutually beneficial symbiosis. All upstream and downstream links in the industrial chain are interconnected and deeply integrated. China has maintained a large deficit in automobile trade with the EU for a long time, with a surplus for the first time in 2025. Any unilateral trade restrictions and differentiated discriminatory regulations will undermine the fair and just global market competition order and impact the long-established industrial cooperation ecosystem between China and Europe. They will not only damage the legitimate rights and interests of China's automobile industry, but will also directly affect the EU's local automobile dealers, end consumers and upstream and downstream supporting enterprises hinder the electrification and intelligent green transformation process of the EU automobile industry, and have a negative impact on the stability and healthy development of the global automobile industry chain and supply chain.

In the face of problems arising in development, we adhere to the principles of equality, mutual benefit, and open consultation, rely on bilateral industrial communication and dialogue mechanisms to properly resolve cognitive differences, build consensus on cooperation, jointly maintain a fair, transparent, stable and orderly China-EU automobile trade environment, and defend the global automobile The integrity and stability of the production and supply chain will help the China-EU automobile industry achieve high-quality, sustainable, mutually beneficial and win-win development, which is in line with the long-term common interests of China and the EU and the global automobile industry.

China's automobile industry has always adhered to the stance of open cooperation, is willing to strengthen industry-supply chain cooperation with industries from various countries, and resolutely opposes various protectionist unilateral trade restrictions, including new tools of "overcapacity." If the EU takes restrictions on China's auto products on the grounds of "overcapacity," China's auto industry believes that the China government will take resolute measures to safeguard China's industrial interests. It is hoped that the EU can listen to the voices of the industry, objectively understand the reality of industrial development, rationally view the interests of cooperation between the two sides, and avoid adopting wrong policies and measures that undermine bilateral cooperation.

Source: China Automobile Manufacturers Association

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