The planned sale of MAN Energy Solutions' gas turbine business to the Chinese company CSIC Longjiang has been prohibited by the German government, according to government sources.

The cabinet will pass a corresponding resolution under the Foreign Trade and Payments Act on Wednesday, government representatives told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday. The reason given was the proximity of the state-owned shipbuilding company "CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine" to the Chinese military. According to the Foreign Trade and Payments Act, the government can prohibit sales to non-EU countries if this could jeopardize national security and order, for example. The Federal Ministry of Economics did not respond to a request for comment. The companies could not initially be reached.

In September, MAN Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, confirmed that the government was intensively examining the planned sale of the division to the Chinese. The company maintains gas turbines with around 100 employees in Oberhausen and Zurich.

(Report by Markus Wacketun Andreas Rinke; edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)