Sawt Falasteen - China suspends 'special port fees' on US vessels for one year

The United States and China have been engaged in a volatile trade and tariff war for months, but agreed to walk back some punitive measures after presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in South Korea last month.

Duties on both sides had reached prohibitive triple-digit levels at one point, hampering trade between the world's two largest economies and snarling global supply chains.

The suspension of the port fees, which applied to ships operated by or built in the United States that visited Chinese ports, began at 13:01 (0501 GMT) on Monday, a transport ministry statement said.

The US shipbuilding industry was dominant after World War II but has gradually declined and now accounts for just 0.1 percent of global output.

The sector is now dominated by Asia, with China building nearly half of all ships launched, ahead of South Korea and Japan.

Beijing also said separately it would suspend sanctions against US subsidiaries of Hanwha Ocean, one of South Korea's largest shipbuilders.

The year-long suspension of measures against Hanwha, effective from November 10, was linked to the US halting port fees it had levied on Chinese-built and operated ships, China's commerce ministry said in an online statement.

"In light of this (US suspension)... China has decided to suspend the relevant measures" for one year, it said.

China had imposed sanctions on five US subsidiaries of Hanwha in October, accusing them of supporting a US government "Section 301" investigation that found Beijing's dominance of the shipbuilding industry unreasonable.

Organisations and individuals in China had been banned from cooperating with Hanwha Shipping LLC, Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean USA International LLC, Hanwha Shipping Holdings LLC and HS USA Holdings Corp.

A planned probe into whether the Section 301 investigation affected the "security and development interests" of China's shipbuilding industry and supply chain had also been shelved for one year, according to the transport ministry.

Beijing "looks forward to the United States continuing to meet China halfway and jointly safeguarding fair competition in the global shipping and shipbuilding market", the commerce ministry said in another statement.

- Export controls -

In another apparent move on Monday to implement recent agreements, China's commerce ministry said it had added more than a dozen fentanyl precursors to a list of controlled exports to the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Washington has long accused Beijing of failing to effectively crack down on flows of the deadly chemicals underpinning a devastating drug crisis in the United States.

While the Chinese statement did not mention recent negotiations, the White House said on November 1 that Beijing had agreed to "stop the shipment of certain designated chemicals to North America" -- part of "significant measures to end the flow of fentanyl".

The measures are the latest sign of a thaw in economic ties since the Xi-Trump meeting.

China said on Wednesday it would extend the suspension of additional tariffs on US goods for one year, keeping them at 10 percent, and suspend some tariffs on soybeans and other US agricultural products.

It also suspended an export ban on gallium, germanium and antimony, metals crucial for modern technology, on Sunday.

Beijing also agreed following talks to halt restrictions on the export of rare earths technology for one year.

Washington in turn agreed to suspend for one year export restrictions on affiliates of blacklisted foreign companies in which they had at least a 50 percent stake, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Wednesday.

Y.Zaher--SF-PST