The EU Has Taken A Tough Stance On Its Clothing Trade Policy.

According to the Wall Street Journal on May 10, 2011, EU Trade Commissioner Teguh Hurt proposed to cancel trade concessions to the rich emerging economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil at the European Union meeting on that day. EU officials say the proposal will be approved by the European Council and the European Parliament, and will be implemented in 2014.

Although the EU claims to cancel trade preferences for emerging export giants, it is in order to benefit from the low development countries that really need trade preferences, but analysts believe that this reflects European and American countries. financial crisis After the change of post trade policy, they emphasized the competitive relationship with the emerging exporters, and therefore began to take a tough position in the trade policy.

According to the information provided by the European Union, the total value of trade concessions provided by the EU to developing countries in 2008 amounted to US $2 billion, benefiting 178 countries and regions. However, the EU believes that this is the most important trade tool for developing countries to provide development assistance, enabling India, Brazil and Russia to achieve economic prosperity, but at the same time, it is difficult for low-level countries to benefit from it. To this end, EU Trade Commissioner Teguh Hurt said in a meeting last month in the European Parliament that he hopes to reduce trade concessions to developing countries by half, with the aim of "giving preferential treatment to those countries that really need it".

EU officials also believe that accepting more trade preferences for emerging economies with low success rather than success will help fight poverty better. However, trade experts have questioned the effectiveness of the above recommendations. Erickson, director of the European Centre for international political studies, points out that only a small discount on tariffs can not change the existing investment location of multinational companies. On the contrary, the adjustment of tariffs may only constitute an additional burden on the latter.

Yao Ling, a European economic research expert at the Ministry of Commerce of China, pointed out that trade commissioner Teguh Hurt's proposal actually reflects the EU as a whole. trade policy In November 2010, the European Union announced the new blueprint for the new global trade strategy in the next 5 years under the new situation. The striking point is that it emphasizes the competitiveness of trade and hopes to promote EU economic growth through trade and solve the problem of high unemployment. Under the impact of the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, European economic growth has slowed down significantly, which has also brought about great changes in its trade policy. "The EU was formerly the pioneer of free trade, but now it emphasizes more on the reciprocity of trade and hopes that developing countries can contribute to their economic development".

Song Hong, director of the International Trade Research Institute of the Institute of world economics and politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agrees with the above statement. He also points out that the EU Trade Commissioner proposes to cancel trade concessions to newly emerging export powers, in fact, it wants to distinguish the emerging economies with larger economies, such as China, Brazil and Russia, from other developing countries.

In recent years, with the economic rise and the international status of BRICs, the developed economies such as Europe and the United States have been demanding to redefine the concept of developing countries, hoping that these export giants will make various commitments as developed countries. But although the economies of these emerging economies have reached a certain level, the per capita income level is still very low, so they must not be separated separately.

Apart from the European Union, the trade policy of the United States and Japan has also become tough after the financial crisis. Japan's Ministry of Finance announced in 2010 that trade preferences for developing countries' commodities will be adjusted from 2011 onwards, making it more difficult for new export giants such as China to enjoy tariff preferences. The trade target set by the US government in 2010 was double the amount of US exports in 5 years. To this end, the United States has abused trade remedy measures and launched anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against emerging economies such as mainland China. American goods "And" hiring Americans "and other policy measures are clearly against their international commitments.

Fu Donghui, director of the Beijing branch of Jin Tian Cheng law firm, said that a large part of the EU's trade concessions to be abolished refer to the preferential policy of "generalized preferential tariff system". According to the introduction, the "generalized preferential tariff system" is the lowest tariff system in the world. It is a universal, non discriminatory and non reciprocal tariff preferential system granted by developing countries to the developing countries to export manufactured goods and semi manufactured goods (including some primary products) under the WTO framework. The beneficiary countries can enjoy a reduction of the tariff free or most favored nation tariff rate.