By Ella Cao and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -China extended on Tuesday a high-profile investigation into imported pork from the European Union by six months, days before it was due to wrap up and as negotiators from Brussels and Beijing carve out a deal over the EU's electric vehicle tariffs.

Launched in June last year, the probe is widely seen as retaliation for EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle exports and has hit over $2 billion in pork exports, concentrated in major producers such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark.

China, the world's largest pork consumer, has decided to extend the investigation period to December 16 due to the "complexity" of the case, the country's commerce ministry said in a statement on its website.

The decision to delay comes as China and the EU close in on a deal over the EV tariffs. Beijing has already extended its anti-dumping investigation into EU brandy and offered to speed up rare earth magnet export licenses for European firms.

A significant portion of the bloc's pork shipments to China consists of offal - including pig ears, noses, and feet - highly valued in Chinese cuisine but with few other destinations.

China imported $4.8 billion worth of pork, including offal, in 2024 - over half of it from the EU, with Spain leading the bloc in exports by volume.

The extension of the probe was cautiously welcomed by industry representatives in the EU, collectively the world's largest pork exporter.

"We'd rather that they take the time for consultations before any decision," said Anne Richard, director of French pork industry association INAPORC.

In a sign of its openness to a deal over its pork investigation, China in April expanded access for Spanish cherries and some pork products.

The prolonging of the probe "means six more months of waiting, which means the cloud hanging over us will remain, but we remain confident and calm," said Giuseppe Aloisio, director general of Spain's meat industry association ANICE.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Ella Cao; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris, Emma Pinedo in Madrid and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Saad Sayeed and David Evans)