SHANGHAI, Oct 24 (Reuters) - China has lifted a five-month ban on imports of a Mercedes-Benz van, saying manufacturer DaimlerChrysler AG had finished modifying models which Chinese authorities claimed came with braking problems.
The ban was lifted on October 18 after DaimlerChrysler submitted reports on factory and road trials of modified vans, the country's official safety agency said in a statement published on its Web site www.aqsiq.gov.cn.
"The ban is lifted as DaimlerChrysler China has taken effective steps and completed modifications to its MB100 vans' brake fuel systems," the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in its statement.
China issued a nationwide warning in May on Benz's South Korean-made MB100 vans -- made for DaimlerChrysler by South Korea's Ssangyong Motor Co -- accusing several van models of a defect that might create difficulty in braking.
DaimlerChrysler, the U.S.-German auto giant and world's number five automaker which owns 1.2 percent of the Ssangyong, denied at the time its vans were faulty and attributed the surprise ban to a possible "misunderstanding".
But a DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman said on Thursday the company was just happy to have resolved the issue on the van, which is targeted mainly at the South Korean market.
"We've been working very closely with (safety agency) AQSIQ, and we appreciate settlement of the matter," she said. "Now that the settlement has been reached, we are not in a position to backtrack and go into any further detail on this issue."
European Union representatives in Beijing had warned of likely harm to China-Europe bilateral trade from Chinese-imposed bans on the Benz vans and on other items like cosmetics. Sino-EU trade totalled $76 billion last year.
PROBLEMS SURFACED IN GANSU
China said problems with the vans surfaced in China's impoverished Gansu province earlier this year.
Officials said the exhaust pipe, braking oil pipe and axle shaft in six Mercedes MB100 minibus models rubbed against each other when the vehicle was in motion, impeding the flow from braking oil to the rear wheels.
DaimlerChrysler responded with a statement saying problems had arisen in a small number of vehicles under rare circumstances, but that brakes were only "marginally affected" even in worst-case scenarios.
It placed notices in dozens of newspapers alerting customers and urging them to bring in their MB100s for free inspections.
The official Xinhua news agency said in May that 2,076 MB100s had undergone repairs around China since 2000, 11.37 percent of them with the same brake defect.
More than 5,000 MB100s of various models had been sold on the mainland since imports from South Korea began in 1998, the agency reported.