From Saturday China will require major European brandy exporters to raise prices or risk anti-dumping taxes of up to 34.9 percent, the latest salvo in its long-running trade spat with the bloc.

The BNIC association of cognac producers said a number of companies agreed to increase prices, without disclosing the negotiated prices.

"In order to avoid seeing their presence in China completely undermined and to be able to plan their activities in China with greater stability, some of our companies have signed 'minimum price commitments'", the association said.

"The minimum price commitment regime offers more tolerable conditions for our companies than the definitive anti-dumping duties announced, even if the market access they allow remains impaired," Florent Morillon, head of the BNIC, was quoted as saying in the statement.

In a separate statement, French cognac and liqueur maker Remy Cointreau also pointed to "an alternative that is significantly less punitive than the application of definitive anti-dumping duties."

Almost all EU brandy is cognac produced in France, exports of which to China are worth 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) per year.

Beijing launched an investigation last year into EU brandy, months after the bloc undertook a probe into Chinese electric vehicle (EV) subsidies.