The commerce ministry is forecasting a glum outlook for trade relations with the European Union (EU) as China is expected to remain the main target of EU trade remedy investigations again in 2010.

Last year, the EU initiated seven new trade remedy investigations, and all are anti-dumping cases against China, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a statement yesterday.

That figure is one more than the previous year, and accounts for 58 percent of all cases the region launched worldwide during the same period. The cases included aluminum wheels, scanners and ironing boards.