The assembly of a semiconductor lithography tool in Veldhoven, Netherlands. The country said last week it would bar the most advanced silicon chip making machines from reaching China © Bart van Overbeeke Fotografie/ASML/ Reuters Brussels seeks new controls to limit China acquiring high-tech on twitter (opens in a new window) Brussels seeks new controls to limit China acquiring high-tech on facebook (opens in a new window) Brussels seeks new controls to limit China acquiring high-tech on linkedin (opens in a new window) Save current progress 0% Andy Bounds in Brussels MARCH 14 2023 11 Print this page Receive free European Union updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest European Union news every morning. The EU is exploring ways to police how European companies invest in production facilities overseas, following similar US moves to limit the ability of China and other rivals to acquire cutting-edge technologies from the west. Valdis Dombrovskis, the bloc’s trade commissioner, told the Financial Times that new restrictions were needed to prevent companies circumventing export bans on sensitive technology by manufacturing it elsewhere. The EU has prohibited its companies from selling products that could help Russia’s armed forces in their war in Ukraine, but re-exporting loopholes remain. The new measures would come against the backdrop of Washington having long pressed its allies to follow its export bans on sensitive technology to China. After months of direct negotiations with the Biden administration, the Netherlands said last week it would bar the most advanced silicon chip making machines from reaching China. The White House is working on an act that would establish an outbound FDI screening agency with a narrow scope to prevent offshoring production, after the US Congress has so far failed to agree on a text with a broader scope. “Outbound investment controls are the other side of the coin of export controls,” Dombrovskis said. “Because you can effectively ban exports of so-called dual use technologies — which we have done for instance to prevent feeding Russia’s war machine — but that still leaves room for the leakage of sensitive technologies through investments on the ground.
