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Export Enterprises Face Foreign Technical Barriers

2009/1/6 11:32:00 29

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In recent years, technical barriers to foreign countries have been frequent, and varieties are becoming more and more detailed and indicators are becoming more and more stringent.

Recently, the Ningbo inspection and Quarantine Bureau organized the investigation of the impact of foreign technical barriers to trade on Ningbo's export enterprises.

The results show that in the first half of 2007 to the first half of 2008, enterprises in Ningbo suffered more than 9 billion US dollars due to foreign technical barriers to trade.

Technical barriers to trade have exceeded the traditional quotas, licensing measures and anti-dumping problems, and become the third major export barriers after exchange rate and tariff.

　　技術(shù)壁壘層出不窮出口企業(yè)難以招架

Since China's accession to the WTO, export products have been encountering foreign technical barriers to trade or restrictions on technical trade measures that are constantly changing and becoming stricter abroad. The European Union, the United States, Japan and other countries have promulgated REACH regulations, consumer goods safety bills and affirmative lists. Export enterprises have lost a lot of competitiveness because of the large number of products being returned, withheld, destroyed or increased in cost.

Ningbo Weijie Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd. is a manufacturer of frying roaster and electric oven. Its products are mainly exported to Germany, Spain and South Africa.

The company's responsible person, Mr. Xu, said: "in view of our small household appliances, foreign countries, especially EU countries, have issued many new instructions in the past two years, such as ROHS, PAHS, PHATHALATE and so on. Some are compulsory, and we can only passively accept them, resulting in higher production costs and more compressing profit space."

Technical barriers to trade are increasingly being used by importing countries and regions, which have more and more adverse effects on our export products.

The survey shows that 70.37% of the enterprises in the agricultural and food products industry are affected, followed by electrical and mechanical equipment, textile and footwear industry, 34.55% and 30.61% of the enterprises are affected respectively, and the above three industries are the pillar industries of Ningbo's exports.

Huang Ting, deputy director of the WTO Office of Ningbo inspection and Quarantine Bureau, said: "the EU is the main export market for Ningbo textile enterprises, but it has strict technical requirements for imported products.

Germany even stipulates that once the imported consumer goods of azo dyes are used, once the carcinogenic aromatic amines are detected, not only will they be destroyed locally, but also they will be compensated, which will lead to the interruption of exports of more than 100 kinds of textiles using azo dyes in China.

At the same time, foreign businessmen often specify suppliers for product design specifications, and also greatly increase the production costs of enterprises.

Zhu Dongmei, Ningbo Jianfeng Plastic Electronics Co., Ltd., said: "after the EU's" environmental storm "hit China, all the environmental protection materials of our company must be ordered from the material suppliers designated by the customers, and the quantity ordered must reach their lowest order, so that the enterprises can produce a lot of stock.

According to the Ningbo inspection and Quarantine Bureau, in the first half of 2007 and the first half of 2008, about 30.74% of the export enterprises in Ningbo were affected by technical barriers to trade abroad, and the total losses in 2007 amounted to US $4 billion 713 million, of which the direct loss was US $1 billion 860 million, while the losses in the first half of 2008 amounted to US $4 billion 461 million and the direct loss amounted to US $1 billion 420 million.

Nearly 5% of enterprises do not seek any solution in the face of foreign technical barriers, no longer export or seek new markets, about 3% of the export of enterprises is seriously shrinking, some from foreign trade to domestic trade, or even bankruptcy.

"Cancellation of orders" and "additional charges" are the two most prominent manifestations of direct losses.

In the surveyed enterprises, the cancellation of orders accounted for more than 70% of the direct loss in 2007, and the proportion increased to 84% in the first half of 2008.

Certification is the biggest problem to break through technical barriers.

Huang Ting said: "from the analysis of the causes of the loss of opportunity, foreign certification requirements for our products or enterprises are the biggest problem causing the loss of export opportunities, which accounts for almost 50% of the loss of export opportunities. Foreign countries and regions not only have the certification of product quality and safety, but also have the certification requirements for enterprise management, environmental impact, social responsibility, and even anti-terrorism, and the procedures are opaque, cumbersome, lack of information, and high certification fees, which is a huge obstacle to the export of our products."

It is understood that in addition to the general inspection plant, many countries have added anti-terrorism inspection plants this year, increasing the cost of enterprises.

Han Yifeng, an inspection agent of Cixi Donghai natural bath products factory, said: "our factory has tested 15 times a year, which involves a lot of energy."

Zhang Linnan, vice president of Ningbo Tianyu aquatic products import and Export Co., Ltd. said: "our company mainly produces squid products, and exported to Japan must be tested by pesticides in a positive list. More than 20 production reports are delivered to Japan every day.

In addition, foreign merchants also asked for quality certification of additives and accessories, and inspection reports for eight projects per quarter.

Many enterprises reflect that foreign merchants often specify certification bodies to certify products or enterprises, and then produce orders for the merchants through the rear.

Most of them do not recognize the certification issued by the domestic inspection and quarantine agency, but they still ask to go to the testing institutions designated by them again.

In order to achieve business docking, in 2007, the Ningbo inspection and Quarantine Bureau spent about 26000000 yuan to introduce a number of high-end detection equipment, and set up nine testing centers, such as photoelectric, coal, automobile parts, stationery, lighters, food, petroleum and so on, and all of them obtained CNAS certification.

That is to say, the inspection of export products is based on the standards of the importing countries, and can be mutually recognized with the foreign certification bodies.

However, the responsible person said that in order to meet the requirements of customers, many enterprises still gave up testing here.

Xu Zhanlin, manager of quality management department, Ningbo Delhi Group Co., Ltd.