China'S Foreign Trade Loses More Than 1 Trillion Yuan A Year Due To Lack Of Standardization.

Originally, we could earn a lot of export lamps for us $100 thousand, because Chinese enterprises had written the national code on the shipping documents to three digits instead of two figures of the United Nations standard. The goods were excluded from the customs computer system of one country, and the goods were pressed for three months.

Such a situation is not isolated.

According to a survey conducted by foreign trade association of Guangdong Province in 2009 for foreign trade enterprises in Guangdong, the foreign trade which amounts to US $400 billion a year is 5% of the total amount of goods that can not be recovered because of the ignorance of international trade standards, which amounts to about 20 billion US dollars.

"The error rate is 20 times that of foreign countries."

Meng Zhuming, senior engineer of the licensing bureau of the Ministry of Commerce and former commercial counselor from abroad, told China Economic Weekly.

"Because of our country

In November 25th, the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) training center, together with the China Standardization Research Institute of the AQSIQ, launched the international trade standardization and popularization and application project.

Du Pin, director of the NDRC training center, expressed the hope that the implementation of the project can partially or even restore the loss of China's current international trade process simplification and standardization.

Document fees exceed all profits of foreign trade enterprises

Up to 200 billion dollars.

Documents in international trade refer to documents, documents and certificates used in international settlement, which are used to handle payment, pportation, insurance, commodity inspection and settlement of international goods.

According to Meng Zhuming, the more than 60 existing import and export enterprises in China are lack of comprehensive and systematic understanding of the simplification and standardization of international trade procedures. They often fail to comply with international standards (Convention) and do not conform to single products.

In addition to the resulting losses, a calculation by the United Nations Conference on Trade and development shows that the cost of international trade documents alone accounts for 8% of the total volume of international trade.

The reason is that compared with domestic trade, the number of documents in international trade is various and the cost of processing is high.

"To do a single international trade involves nearly 360 documents issued by 45 institutions, including production, ordering, banking, insurance, pportation, pportation agents, import and export (re export), etc.".

Meng Zhuming told China Economic Weekly that if China's international trade volume reached 2 trillion and 800 billion US dollars this year, our country's expenditure on international trade documents will exceed US $200 billion this year.

This even surpasses all the profits of the existing foreign trade enterprises.

The complexity of documents is also difficult for many foreign trade enterprises to fully grasp.

Take the electric blanket as an example, its customs code is 6301.10006301 blankets and 1000 electric heating.

If the last 4 are 2000, they are made of wool.

If you add 10 to 6301.2000.10 after 6301.2000, it means wool electric blanket with a length of not more than 3 centimeters. "

General manager of Dalian Bai Reed International Logistics Co., Ltd. told China Economic Weekly that "most of the enterprises are in low cost operation stage, and lack of talents. Even many bosses of foreign trade enterprises do not understand the rules of international trade, and they do not understand the requirements of the state for import and export. Therefore, many small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises will entrust the specific customs clearance to some domestic custom brokers company or international logistics enterprises.

The management of foreign trade enterprises is not sound and the profits are too low. The state's import and export management system is opaque, and customs and customs officers at different levels do not understand the management rules.

Meng Zhuming told reporters that even customs officials said why they should be standardized? No standard customs would have the final say.

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Standardization of documents occupies the first place in technical barriers to trade

According to Meng Zhuming, international trade involves many international and domestic laws, regulations, agreements and practices.

However, international trade also involves many complicated procedures and institutions. Apart from importers and exporters, pportation departments, insurance companies, customs and customs declaration agencies, banks, wharfs, commodity inspection bodies, government and other official institutions, it also involves language, currency, jet lag, space differences, trade conflicts and other issues. At the same time, it involves all kinds of international trade documents.

"These are the so-called technical barriers."

"Barrier to standardization of documents is the first place in international trade technical barriers."

Wang Zhongmin, President of the Chinese Academy of standardization, told China Economic Weekly. "According to WTO data, technical barriers have become the biggest obstacle to international trade, and technical barriers are usually the standard."

"Before the unified standards of the United Nations, hundreds of thousands of foreign trade enterprises all over the world hand in hand their respective documents, and they have no connection with each other, and the data can not be exchanged."

Meng Zhuming said that in view of the frequent different standards of international trade standards, the United Nations Trade simplification and Electronic Commerce Commission (UN/CEFACT) began to engage in simplification and standardization of international trade procedures from the early 60s of last century, and developed the first international trade procedure simplification standard, the United Nations trade document style, which was recommended for use in the United Nations Framework in 1981.

Subsequently, the United Nations Trade simplification and electronic business committee has launched 33 proposals, 7 sets of standards and 5 sets of technical specifications, forming a set of unified global trade facilitation measures and standards. "The purpose is to simplify the trade process and reduce the disputes arising therefrom."

Meng Zhuming told reporters, "this set of standards has been applied in various countries in the world, and has directly promoted the rapid development of international trade.

Singapore took the lead in using this standard in 1994. It has reduced the customs declaration time of one international trade from 80 hours to 12 minutes. The time of traditional handmade documents has been shortened from 30 hours to 30 minutes, greatly improving production efficiency, and thus becoming a truly trading power.

Even in some African countries, they have done better in standard documents than in China. "

Meng Zhuming also gave an example to illustrate the importance of the standards. Once they visited Germany, they were opened by one of the local security inspectors because of the large size of a member who was unable to pass the security inspection equipment, and finally they missed the flight.

"Our foreign trade is big and not strong. One of the important reasons is that we do not attach importance to standards."

Meng Zhuming said.

Domestic trade standardization has been suspended for 10 years.

How important is the standardization of documents? In the view of Meng Zhuming, so far, many foreign trade personnel are still unaware.

"For example, many enterprises get their trademark logo and other so-called shipping marks onto the documents, and are not recognized by computers. But the reason why the goods are out of the country is not being told, so enterprises are making mistakes."

Meng Zhuming said, "what is even more frightening is that our generation of international trade personnel have been trained like this."

"The 33 standard proposals of the United Nations are issued and maintained at all times. However, many of the standards we have followed are revised in 10 or 20 years, which is far behind the development.

In the country's "professional qualification standards" and "China's professional ceremony", the field of international trade is still blank.

Meng Zhuming said.

According to experts, due to insufficient attention to simplification and standardization of international trade, the related work has been suspended for 10 years.

At the same time, there are no textbooks on international trade standardization in more than 1000 colleges and universities with international trade specialties.

Wang Zhongmin told reporters that as the UN's proposals and standards on international trade standardization are numerous and English, it is very difficult for Chinese users.

The Chinese Academy of standardization has conducted many years of in-depth research, and has made scientific classification of these proposals, standards and technical specifications, providing users with reference, manuals and guidelines for the simplification and standardization of international trade procedures.

He hoped that through cooperation with the NDRC training center, the competent departments of foreign trade, foreign trade officials, entrepreneurs and foreign trade professionals could understand these standards.

"The standardization and popularization of international trade in China still need a lot of hard work and coordination, and there is a need for joint efforts and support from various departments and people."

Wang Zhongmin said.