Obstacles To Chinese Enterprises' Export: Technical Barriers To Trade

Recent trends show that, in the context of slow global economic recovery, most export enterprises in China have mainly hoped for diversification of export market because of "

Emerging industries such as developing countries are becoming increasingly fierce competition, and are gradually narrowing.

For China's foreign trade industry, with the help of technology and product upgrading to break through the path, and constantly improve the leading edge of its technology, the force has been formed.

Recently, China's latest economic performance data show that: in the first three quarters, China's total import and export volume decreased by 7.9% compared to the same period last year, down 8.8% from the same period in September.

A series of indications indicate that the steady growth of foreign trade is not optimistic.

In addition to the impact of the new trade system framework such as the TPP (p Pacific Partnership Agreement) and the TTIP (p the Atlantic trade and investment partnership agreement), and within the framework of WTO, trade protectionism, which is dominated by TBT, is also showing an accelerating trend and has an impact on China's export enterprises.

From the perspective of the magnitude of the impact, take the findings of a number of enterprises released by Shenzhen, a foreign trade city in September, as an example: about 34.6% of the export enterprises are affected by foreign technical trade measures. On the total scale, WTO members submitted 2239 TBT bulletin in 2014, with the exception of the United States reporting the same growth rate of 74%.

Broadly speaking, technical trade measures refer mainly to various forms of non-tariff barriers under the technical barriers to trade agreement (TechnicalBarrierstoTrade, TBT) and the implementation of the AgreementontheApplicationofSanitaryandPhytosanitaryMeasures (SPS).

These measures are usually implemented on the basis of safeguarding national security, human health and safety, life and health of animals and plants, environment, quality and so on. They are implemented through technical regulations, standards, conformity assessment procedures, sanitary and plant hygiene, and constitute technical barriers to trade.

For exporting countries, appropriate technical trade measures will help to improve their technological level and product advantages.

However, because it does not violate the principle of non discriminatory, fair trade and pparency of WTO organizations, it has more operational space. As a barrier to trade barriers, the difficulty of export enterprises will increase exponentially.

"Technical trade measures have become the second major factors that affect the export of our products after the exchange rate. The comprehensive response of China's technical trade measures needs to be strengthened."

Wei Chuanzhong, President of the China Inspection and Quarantine Association, made such an early warning.

The so-called comprehensive response, in addition to resolving disputes through rules within the framework of WTO, the academics pointed out that the main solutions for enterprises are three:

First, improve the technological level of our products to surpass the restrictions of technical barriers to trade.

Two, actively adjust the structure of export products;

Three, diversify the export market.

Apart from trade between the European Union and the United States and Japan, it is important to open up markets for developing countries such as Asia, Africa and Latin America.

According to the survey data published by the State Quality Inspection Administration (QSIQ) recently, 36.1% of the export enterprises were affected by this obstacle to different degrees. In 2014, China's export trade was directly lost $75 billion 520 million, an increase of 9 billion 320 million US dollars over the same period, accounting for 3.2% of the same period.

Once encountering technical barriers to trade, the loss of export enterprises is mainly manifested as "loss of orders", followed by "demoted treatment", and other forms of loss include return of goods and port processing.

In terms of industry, the products that are more affected are electromechanical instruments, chemical minerals, textile shoes and hats, toy furniture, rubber and plastic leather, etc.

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There are two main foreign TBT means: first, to set up strict and complicated technical standards; two, to introduce import restrictions.

For example, the new trade law adopted by the Indonesian parliament in 2014 allowed the government to restrict imports and exports through tariff and non-tariff barriers.

For this reason, Indonesia first restricted the import of large quantities of alloy steel, and from next year, all mobile phones imported to Indonesia must also be equipped with their domestic components.

According to geographical division, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong, Tianjin, Jiangsu and other large provinces of China's foreign trade have "caught up one after another".

Among them, Guangdong accounts for about 1/3 of the total exports. Due to the impact of 40% enterprises in 2014, the total amount of direct loss has reached 23 billion 730 million US dollars, which has become the most serious loss province.

In response to the new trend of trade protectionism, Guo Chu, a researcher at the Institute of international economics of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, thinks there are several new features:

First, in the trend of trade protectionism, various non-tariff trade barriers emerge in an endless stream, especially in terms of technology, patents and green barriers.

Two is

Obviously increased.

All major economies have taken new industries such as information technology, biotechnology, energy conservation, environmental protection and new energy as new economic growth. They attempt to rely on capital and key technologies to occupy a high level of future industrial development.

Three, the scope of technical barriers to trade is becoming more and more extensive. Some emerging countries have begun to set up technical barriers to trade from the protection of their own industries.

As China's own labor and resources costs rise, more and more industries are moving to other developing countries, such as ASEAN and the countries along the belt and road. Their industrial goods in the past mainly rely on imports, and now they become processing export countries.

In order to protect their industries and markets, there are bound to be some relatively high technical standards and regulations, which in turn restrict the import of Chinese products.