Deputy Director Of AQSIQ: Improving Capability To Cope With Technical Barriers To Trade

< p > at present, < a href= "http://pop.sjfzxm.com/popimg/fz/index.aspx" > world economy < /a > is experiencing the coldest winter.

The US financial crisis in 2008, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe in 2011, and the complex pformation of the international economic environment.

Under this impact, China's external oriented economic situation is also not optimistic.

In 2012, China has maintained 10 years of rapid growth and began to bear enormous pressure. Various difficulties, such as export recession, investment fatigue and employment pressure, began to highlight.

Under such circumstances, how should we base ourselves on the supplement of government services and enterprises' self-reliance, deal with the more serious risks of technical trade measures, and plan for international cooperation in areas such as potential effective technical trade measures.

The author analyzes the new situation from home and abroad, the new characteristics of technical barriers to trade, the adverse effects on China and the coping strategies of our country from four aspects.

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< p > < strong > international economic recession < /strong > /p >

< p > < strong > trade protectionism upgrading > /strong > /p >

The world economy has entered a turbulent period since the P financial crisis in 2008.

From the end of 2009 to early 2010, the negative impact of the international financial crisis eased slightly under the strong intervention of the government of emerging market countries represented by China.

However, since 2011, the sovereign debt crisis of European countries has intensified, and both developed and emerging market countries have been greatly affected.

According to the UN [micro-blog] forecast, the world economy grew by about 2.6% in 2012, 0.2 percentage points lower than 2011 and 1.4 percentage points lower than 2010.

The global economic outlook is rapidly deteriorating and has affected trade.

According to the statistical report issued on WTO10 23, in 2011, the volume of Global trade increased by 5%, not only far below the increase of 13.8% in 2010, but also below the long-term average of 1990 from 2008 to 2008, which is worrying.

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At present, the US economy has basically recovered to the level before the financial crisis, but the growth is slow and the recovery is weak. The European sovereign debt crisis is still fermenting, and the risk is spreading from the periphery countries such as Greece to the core countries of the euro area. From the public finance to the banking industry, the euro area economy has been in the overall recession. Japan is struggling to maintain the edge of the weak positive growth, and the heavy debt of high level makes it possible to fall into crisis. P

While emerging economies such as Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa and other economies have maintained growth momentum, but because of inflation plagued, inflation and security growth in the face of a dilemma.

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Under the circumstances of profound changes in the world's political and economic structure, these problems will be tied up each other, which will lead to various forms of protectionism becoming more and more intense. Competition in the market, resources, talents, technology and standards will be particularly prominent. The politicization and internationalization of product quality issues will become more obvious. P

With the further warming of trade protectionism and the enhancement of the trend of trade protection by the use of technical measures, new pressures will be formed on China's stability and expansion of external demand and the difficulty will be increased.

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< p > under the condition of the continuous recession of the international economic environment, < a href= "http://www.91se91.com/news/index_x.asp" > China's export trade < /a > the situation is unprecedentedly grim, showing two general characteristics: first, the growth rate of foreign trade has obviously declined.

In July this year, China's foreign trade growth rate dropped to 2.7%, and in August it was further reduced to 0.2%, which is unprecedented since reform and opening up.

According to WTO's forecast of world trade volume in the whole year and the preliminary budget of China's export price index in the first 8 months, the annual export volume should strive to grow by more than 6.8%, so as to ensure that our global market share does not drop, and the export situation is very severe.

Two, trade frictions continue to increase.

According to the AQSIQ statistics, in 2011, the direct loss of our products being detained, destroyed and returned by foreign trade amounted to US $62 billion 260 million, due to technical trade measures, an increase of US $4 billion 20 million over the same period last year.

From 1 to August this year, there were 25 thousand and 200 batches of the total number of exports and the amount of returned products amounted to US $1 billion 709 million.

The European Union informed me that 960 unqualified consumer goods were exported, up 75.4% from the same period last year.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled 122 unqualified consumer goods from China, and 95% of the about 1000000 unqualified consumer products seized from China have been exported from China.

Most of the key foreign trade enterprises still face the grim situation of decreasing export orders, declining profit levels and increasing survival difficulties.

Some enterprises reflect that the current foreign trade situation is more severe than in 2009.

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< p > discrimination against China's trade policy was significantly enhanced < /p >

During the financial crisis after P, the instability and uncertainty of the world economic recovery were further enhanced, and trade protectionism was booming. Technical trade measures became increasingly a tool for trade protectionism in disguise.

Some members have gradually taken the technical trade measures as a means to protect their own interests, making them an important factor affecting international trade.

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< p > countries or regions with the aim of trade protection not only set up trade barriers through constantly updating technical regulations and technical standards and increasing the difficulty of inspection and testing of imported products, but also combined the problems of non technical regulations and standards with intellectual property rights, product prices and discriminant classification management of imported products with technical regulations and technical standards, forming new technical barriers to trade, further increasing the types of technical barriers to trade, and making the issue of technical barriers to trade more complicated.

Here, the author simply introduces several typical technical barriers: < /p >

< p > moral barriers.

It includes social responsibility standards and animal welfare standards.

The SA8000 standard, the world's first "social responsibility standard", which is emerging and being increasingly concerned, pfers the realization of trade protection to labor standards, protects human health, protects human rights and social responsibilities, and has great concealment and deception.

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< p > two is information technology barrier.

Developed countries make use of the advantages of information technology and formulate requirements for the means of information pmission in international trade by formulating information technology application standards, information technology application regulations and conformity assessment procedures, such as e-commerce and paperless trade, so as to achieve the purpose of trade protection.

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< p > three is "green barrier".

In order to protect the natural resources, ecological environment and the health of the residents, the importing countries have developed a series of trade barriers that are complicated and harsh to meet the environmental standards of imported goods.

Green barriers such as green products, green marketing, cleaner production and environmental labeling constitute a new protection network for international trade.

In order to safeguard their own economic interests, some countries make use of the extensive attention of consumers and the international community to the environmental protection department. In order to protect human health and ecological environment, they rely on their advanced environmental protection technology to prevent foreign products from entering the domestic market by setting up environmental standards, so as to build up green barriers, and take environmental protection as a new weapon to serve the policy of trade protectionism.

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< p > four is a low carbon barrier.

In the era of low carbon economy, the development of low carbon economy is becoming a new growth point of the world economy.

Low carbon concept promotes global industrial restructuring, and the product structure of international trade will change dramatically.

For example, the international standard ISO 14067 of carbon footprint of products is coming out. This standard uses quantitative method and life cycle assessment method to make a quantitative assessment of the carbon cycle and carbon removal from the cradle to grave.

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< p > in addition to reasonable protection purposes, some countries, in order to meet the different purposes of domestic elections, industry and trade protection, have been hyped up about the quality and safety of our products and food safety, discredit "made in China", politicize and internationalize product quality and safety issues, and set up specialized or concealed technical trade measures against China on the basis of ensuring the quality of imported products and food safety, and take the opportunity to restrict the import of our products.

According to statistics, the technical trade measures related to China averaged 19.7% in the past three years, accounting for 1/5 of the total trade concern of WTO.

In the 2013 federal budget act proposed by Obama in February 13, 2012, 7 new food safety inspectors went to China to carry out inspection tasks. The US FDA (food and drug administration, Food and Drug Administration) officials proposed that samples taken from export enterprises in China be directly brought back to the United States for inspection.

In February this year, the United States formally established the federal inter departmental trade enforcement center to "prevent counterfeit or inferior products or unsafe products from passing through the US territory".

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< p > Italy < < a href= > http://www.91se91.com/news/index_c.asp > > poison shoes > /a > is a typical case.

The main reason lies in the fact that Italy is a big country and a big exporter of traditional shoes making power. China is the largest footwear producer and exporter in the world.

Before the EU's anti-dumping duty on footwear increased to maturity, Italy made use of the issue of "six valent chromium" to create trouble and hyped it up. The aim is to create pressure on the European Commission before the EU is ready to lift anti-dumping duties on Chinese footwear, in order to hinder the entry of footwear into the EU market, so as to protect the interests of its footwear industry.

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< p > < strong > the adverse effects of foreign technical trade measures on China's exports < /strong > < /p >

< p > technical trade measures are characterized by complex technology, strong concealment, large diffusion effect and wide influence. They have fully exerting the legal constraints of technical regulations and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, the technical basis of standards, and the quality and safety guarantee of conformity assessment procedures, which has a significant impact on China's export trade.

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< p > according to the AQSIQ survey and statistics, from 2005 to 2011, the export losses of China's export products, which were affected by foreign technical trade measures, increased year by year, from US $28 billion 813 million in 2005 to US $62 billion 259 million in 2011. The cost of 2011's enterprises to cope with the technical trade measures abroad was 25 billion 962 million US dollars, up 1 billion 571 million US dollars from 2010.

In 2011, the top five industries that were affected by foreign technical trade measures were electromechanical instruments, chemical and mining metals, agricultural products, toy furniture and textile shoes and hats.

Behind these figures are tens of thousands of enterprises, hundreds of millions of national interests, thought-provoking and thought-provoking.

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< p > > a href= "http://fz.sjfzxm.com/" > foreign technical trade < /a > measures not only cause direct economic losses to our country, but also have a bad influence on China's national image and corporate reputation.

The rapid growth of China's economy will inevitably lead to conflicts and games between big and powerful countries in the field of economic and trade.

Some big economies are also trying to politicize and internationalize their economic and trade problems, and to resist the "made in China" problem by product quality and safety, because of the weak economic growth and the increasing unemployment rate, and to some extent, cause our export commodities to occupy the first place in the US, Europe and Japan.

Among them, there are indeed product quality problems, there are foreign trade protectionism and media speculation and other reasons.

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< p > < strong > countermeasures to deal with foreign technical trade measures < /strong > < /p >

< p > with the pformation of China's economic development mode and the integrated development of domestic and foreign markets, we should correctly understand the reasonable technical trade measures abroad, and use foreign advanced technical trade measures to force technological upgrading and upgrading of our export enterprises and even the whole industry. On the other hand, we should take effective measures to cope with unreasonable demands from abroad so as to minimize their impact on China's exports.

We should systematically think about China's coping strategies from the aspects of strategy, tactics, methods, ways and means.

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< p > (1) to participate in the revision of international rules and standards, and to strengthen bilateral and regional cooperation and exchanges, < /p >

< p > we should attach great importance to the revision of international rules and standards related to technical trade measures, and strive to achieve the pformation from international rules practitioners to international rulers and leaders.

We should focus on participating in multi bilateral negotiations under the WTO framework to consolidate and continuously expand the influence of our country on the revision of the decision-making level, management, technical institutions and rules of rules of the relevant international organizations and regional organizations.

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< p > (two) vigorously implement the standard strategy, and actively improve China's technical trade measures system < /p >

There is still a big gap between China's international standard and P.

At present, the slump in the international economic situation will have some adverse effects on the world standardization work, but it is a great opportunity for China to carry out strategic deployment and take advantage of the trend.

In order to cope with the economic recession, the governments of developed countries will also reduce funding for research, R & D and standardization.

Now is the opportune time for us to increase investment and layout, and strive for a more advantageous leading position in international standardization.

High and new technology standard is the fiercely competitive field in the world today, and it is also the most hopeful field for China to achieve leapfrog development.

We should set up a standard system based on our own intellectual property rights as soon as possible, and gain advantage in international trade.

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< p > (three) make full use of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and actively prepare and implement counteraction measures < /p >

< p > for the violation of the WTO rules, the formulation and implementation of the technical trade measures that affect the export of our products, we should intensify our efforts to negotiate with the outside world, and we should actively formulate, real-time, moderate, and sometimes take effective measures in accordance with relevant evidence, so as to enable the countries concerned to cancel their discriminatory or unreasonable technical trade measures so as to safeguard our interests.

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< p > (four) enhance enterprises' awareness and ability to deal with foreign technical trade measures < /p >

< p > enterprises are the main body of market economy activities, and also the basic unit of standardization work. They are also the frontline of dealing with technical trade measures.

Chinese enterprises often feel exhausted when dealing with foreign technical trade measures, and government departments often feel tired, because we have not yet established a system of government service, enterprise autonomy and scientific research support to deal with technical trade measures systematically.

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< p > enterprises should raise the level of science and technology, realize the limitation of exceeding the technical barriers to trade in technology, adjust the structure of export products, actively develop new and high technology industries and green industries, improve the traditional extensive economic growth mode, promote the intensive use of resources and the dynamic balance of the environment, and realize the diversification of export market.

In addition to continuing to develop trade with a few developed countries such as the European Union, the United States and Japan, we should also pay attention to and attach importance to other developed countries and regions, and accelerate the development of developing markets such as Asia, Africa and Latin America.

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< p > (five) strengthen external publicity, and actively guide the objective reporting of international public opinion < /p >

< p > to increase publicity efforts and calm the serious doubts about foreign countries' < a href= "http://www.91se91.com/news/index_f.asp > China made /a >, in July 2007, the delegation visited the United States with the aim of accurately explaining the position of the Chinese government to the US side and fully clarifying the truth.

During the United States, the author met with US Congressmen, the Ministry of finance, the Ministry of health and other government departments, and delivered speeches and press conferences on various occasions.

This series of activities of the delegation has brought more than 50 mainstream media from the US side to a comprehensive and objective understanding of the situation, thus ending the continuous negative speculation in the past six months.

This is the first time that China has held a press conference on product quality and safety issues abroad for the first time, and has achieved positive results, which has accumulated valuable experience for China to successfully deal with such events - < /p >

< p > one is to increase the confidence and trust in the quality, safety, environmental protection and hygiene supervision of our products, increase the confidence and trust of foreign governments and consumers in the quality and safety level of our products. Two, it is necessary to provide objective, real and authoritative information for the first time to avoid unnecessary rumours in the event of major product quality and safety incidents. Three, when a major accident involving quality and safety of our products occurs abroad, it is necessary to send an authoritative delegation directly to abroad to hold a press conference with a wide range of representative media to enable the consumers and government departments in the accident countries to know the truth and the attitude of the government and the measures adopted by the Chinese government and the measures taken and the results achieved, so as to avoid speculation.

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< p > (six) strengthen quality and safety management and enhance international competitiveness of products, < /p >

< p > this problem can be summed up as two points: first, we should further implement the quality development outline, innovate the quality and safety development mechanism, improve the quality and safety supervision measures, strengthen the import and export inspection and quarantine, improve the seriousness and effectiveness of law enforcement, strictly punish all kinds of illegal activities according to law, and resolutely safeguard the international reputation of China's product quality and safety.

Two, we need to further accelerate the pformation of our country from a manufacturing country to a manufacturing power.

Of course, in this process, we should pay special attention to properly handle various product quality and food safety emergencies, and reduce and properly handle trade frictions.

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