Germany’s Scholz rejects blanket state supervision of exports to China

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government should not place all exports to China under supervision, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.

“We have now made a whole series of laws with which we can guarantee the security of our economy,” Scholz said at an event hosted by the BDI industry association in Berlin.

It is clear that we should not now subject the entire export process to an investigation by state authorities,” he added.

The European Commission on Tuesday will unveil possible measures, such as screening of outbound investments and export controls, to keep prized EU technology from countries such as China and prevent it being put to military use by rivals.

The European Union executive will present its Economic Security Strategy as a “communication” to EU lawmakers and countries, whose leaders are set to discuss relations with China in Brussels next week.

“Of course, we must take a closer look when it comes to the question of defending armaments .. surveillance technologies, you have to be very careful there,” Scholz said.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; editing by Friederike Heine and Jason Neely)

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