By Daphne Psaledakis and Toby Sterling

WASHINGTON/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – On a visit to Washington, the Netherlands’ economy minister on Monday underlined the importance of China as a trading partner and repeated that Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML must be allowed to “do business as freely as possible.”

Dirk Beljaarts underlined that his meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves was to promote bilateral trade, not to negotiate over export restrictions, which do not fall under his purview.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Beljaarts’ visit comes ahead of an expected expansion of U.S. rules restricting semiconductor exports to certain computer chip plants in China.

CONTEXT

ASML is the largest supplier of equipment to computer chip makers. Earlier this month, the Netherlands government began requiring export licenses for more of ASML’s product range to China, following pressure from the U.S.

While the U.S. is an important Dutch ally and trading partner, Taiwan, China and South Korea are ASML’s biggest markets.

KEY QUOTES

“The Chinese are an important trade partner, as is the United States and many other countries in the world, and we have our own economy to upkeep and to make sure that our companies can do business as freely as possible.”

“We know that ASML is a crown jewel for the Netherlands, which we are very proud of, and from our perspective, it’s important that the company can operate as freely as possible within the boundaries that are there. And what we discussed primarily is how we can further progress the cooperation between the two countries.”