33. Expresses concern at the escalating tariff measures being taken by China and the United States; 34. Expresses concern at the number of restrictions that European companies, and MSMEs in particular, continue to face in the PRC, including the 2017 Foreign Investment Catalogue and the 2017 Free Trade Zone Negative List, as well as in sectors covered by the ‘Made in China 2025’ plan; calls for the rapid reduction of these restrictions in order to fully harness the potential of cooperation and synergies between Industry 4.0 schemes in Europe and the ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy, in view of the need to restructure our production sectors towards intelligent manufacturing, including cooperation in the development and definition of respective industrial standards in multilateral fora; recalls the importance of reducing government subsidies in the PRC; 35. Calls on the PRC to stop making market access increasingly conditional on forced technology transfers, as stated in the European Union Chamber of Commerce’s 2017 position paper on China; 36. Calls for the resumption of negotiations on the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA), by building on the fruitful collaboration between the EU and the PRC in the fight against climate change and the strong joint commitment towards the implementation of the Paris Agreement; stresses the trade potential of technological cooperation on clean technologies; 37. Notes with concern the conclusions of the Commission’s report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries, which singles out the PRC as the chief concern; reiterates the need to ensure protection for the European knowledgebased economy; calls on the PRC to fight the illicit use of European licences by Chinese companies; 38. Calls on the Commission to provide for a European Union presence at the China International Import Expo to be held in Shanghai in November 2018, and to provide SMEs, in particular, with the opportunity to showcase their work; calls on the Commission to reach out to chambers of commerce, particularly in Member States that are currently less involved in trade with China, in order to promote this opportunity; 39. Expresses concern about the PRC’s state measures that caused trade distortions, including industrial overcapacity in raw material sectors such as the steel and aluminium sectors, among others; recalls the commitments made at the first ministerial meeting of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity in 2017 to refrain from providing market-distorting subsidies, but regrets the failure of the Chinese delegation to deliver data on capacity; calls on the PRC to fulfil its commitment to identify and disclose data on its subsidies and support measures for the steel and aluminium industries; recognises the link between global industrial overcapacity and the surge in protectionist trade measures, and continues to urge multilateral cooperation in order to address the structural concerns behind overcapacity; welcomes the proposed tripartite action by the US, Japan and the EU at WTO level; 40. Highlights the importance of an ambitious EU-PRC agreement on geographical indications (GIs), based on the highest international standards, and welcomes the EU-PRC 2017 joint announcement on the list of 200 Chinese and European GIs, for which protection will be the subject of negotiations; considers, however, that given that