The Lights Are On But No One's At Home - DG Trade Get It Wrong

The decision by DG Trade to continue to hold in place a tariff on Chinese energy saving light bulbs is a foolish one.

It seems that only German light bulb company Osram wanted to keep the tariff. I hope that the tariff will be lifted and soon. It makes no sense for the European Commission to keep a tariff in place when they are trying to encourage European consumers to save energy.

It is also bad economics.

I hope that the tariff will be voted down by member states within the month.

The BBC have more information here.

Safety First - Not Covert Protectionism

Sadly it seems that there have been a significant number of safety scandals involving Chinese products. This one has claimed the life of a factory boss in Guangdong Province.

Clearly it is vitally important that consumers are protected from dangerous products. However, there is a fine line between consumer safety and covert protectionism. In China's case, yes, they need to strengthen safety standards but this should not become a cover for some of the protectionist attitudes emerging in the US and parts of the EU. The benefits of free trade have long been shown to outweigh the costs and furthermore, nations that trade work harder to get along harmoniously.

Harming China's businesses (unless, of course, they are involved in wrongdoing) for the sake of it will create a seige mentality which will undermine political liberalisation.