A waning EU solar market is losing its importance in the world and the EU's continued restrictive measures will hasten that decline, harming the bloc's climate and energy agendas, an official with the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in Beijing on Sunday.



Shen Danyang, a spokesman with the MOFCOM, made the remark at a press conference. He was asked to comment on China's declining exports of solar products to the EU in the first half of the year and the latter's decision to exclude some Chinese solar exporters from a price undertaking that allows them to export to the EU free from tariffs.



To resolve a dispute on China's cheap solar exports, China and the EU agreed in 2013 on an undertaking that involved a minimum sales price as well as a limit on the number of Chinese-made solar panels sold in the EU.



From June 2015 to August this year, the European Commission expelled a total of 16 Chinese solar exporters. Companies that left the undertaking are facing anti-dumping duties.



Shen said that there are still 105 Chinese exporters within the undertaking, which means the vast majority of Chinese exporters have been able to keep their promise of not selling below the minimum price.



Shen said that fact is in a way connected to the decline of Chinese exports to the EU but it is not the fundamental cause.



The fundamental cause is that the EU member countries gradually scrapped incentives, causing the EU solar market to contract drastically, according to Shen.



In 2015, only 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity was installed in the EU, compared with 22.4 GW at the peak in 2011, noted Shen.



"Disputes are normal in international trade. But we advocate that trade be conducted on an equal and mutually beneficial basis. As a beneficiary of cheap and quality Chinese exports, the EU chooses to wave the stick of anti-dumping and anti-subsidiary tariffs. This is an unfair practice," said Meng Xiangan, vice chairman of the China Renewable Energy Society, a research institution in Beijing.



Meng told the Global Times Sunday that boosted by China's national agenda to develop its new energy industry and solar development, China's domestic market has expanded greatly.



China produced 27 GW of solar modules in the first half of 2016, and installed 20 GW of new solar power capacity in the same period, three times as much as the same period a year earlier, Reuters reported in September.



"Now we can consume a significant amount of products with a constantly expanding domestic market," Meng said.



"But we still push for exports wherever we can, so the market focus is shifting from the EU to customers in the US, Japan and Africa," Meng said, noting that the trend is a reflection of the EU's trade protectionism measures.