Reuters: Germany to help China gain market status from EU

Germany will work to get the European Union to recognise China as a market economy by 2016, giving it benefits under international trade rules, according to a joint communique issued after leaders of the countries met on Tuesday. China has urged the EU to recognise it as a market economy, a status that would make it less vulnerable to anti-dumping charges under rules of the World Trade Organization. Chancellor Angela Merkel met Chinese premier Wen Jiabao at the Meseberg Palace north of Berlin after an EU-Asia summit in Brussels. The statement issued in Berlin added that China had agreed to hold talks with the EU on the issue. It also said China would still have to fulfil certain EU conditions.