With the deepening of global economic integration, the establishment of free trade zones or customs unions between many countries, all tariffs and non-tariff barriers on goods within the zone are fully or partially abolished, such as between the European Union, the United States and Canada, etc., and this trend is being strengthened. In this context of global trade liberalization, in order to protect their own industries to avoid or reduce the impact of foreign countries have taken measures to limit the entry of foreign products into their own markets.
According to the statistics of the Foreign Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, the scale of China's foreign trade has already ranked third in the world, and has become the third largest trading country after the United States and Japan. At the same time, the number of China's foreign trade friction incidents has gradually increased. Some countries from time to time to put forward anti-dumping charges and all kinds of trade barriers have been on China's exports caused great challenges.
First, a variety of new trade barriers
The so-called new trade barriers, is relative to the traditional trade barriers. The so-called new trade barriers are relative to the traditional trade barriers. They mainly refer to technical barriers as the core, including green barriers and social barriers, including all the new non-tariff barriers that impede the free flow of international goods. And traditional trade barriers refer to tariff barriers and traditional non-tariff barriers, such as high tariffs, quotas, licenses, anti-dumping and countervailing.
Distinguish between traditional trade barriers and new trade barriers to the fundamental characteristic is: the former is mainly from the number of commodities and prices to implement restrictions, more reflected in the commodities and commercial interests, the measures taken by most of the border measures; and the latter tend to focus on the number of commodities and prices of commercial interests other than the things, and give more consideration to the commodities for human health, safety and environmental impact, reflecting the social interests and environmental interests, and the latter is often focusing on the number of commodities and prices of commercial interests, more consideration for human health, safety and environmental impact, reflecting the social interests and environmental interests. The latter tends to focus on things other than commercial interests, such as the quantity and price of goods, and give more consideration to the impact of goods on human health, safety and the environment, reflecting the interests of society and the environment, and adopting measures that are not only border measures but also involve domestic policies and regulations. The main elements are technical barriers, green barriers, social barriers and so on.
Table 1 The main types of new trade barriers
No. Types
1, technical barriers to trade (TBT)
2, green barriers to trade
3, social barriers
4, barriers to trade in services
5, intellectual property rights protection
6, sanitary and phytosanitary measures ( SPS)
7, customs clearance link barriers
8, trade remedies
9, export restrictions
10, government procurement
11, other barriers
With the emergence and development of new trade barriers, trade barriers are undergoing structural changes. Traditional trade barriers are gradually moving towards differentiation, in which barriers such as tariffs, quotas and licenses are gradually weakening, while traditional trade barriers such as anti-dumping continue to exist for a considerable period of time and have a tendency to be upgraded and strengthened. With technical barriers as the core of the new trade barriers will exist for a long time and continue to develop, and will gradually replace the traditional trade barriers and become the main body of international trade barriers. Therefore, although new trade barriers hinder trade liberalization to a certain extent and often become the policy tools of trade protectionism in some countries, they will be one of the main "problems" encountered in foreign trade in the future for the vast number of developing countries, especially for our country, which is a large developing country. Facts show that most of the enterprises in China are facing more and more new international trade rules binding, and show a lack of adaptability.
Since China's accession to the WTO in 2001, countries around the world in the number of products, tariffs and other traditional barriers to the restriction of China's products are gradually reduced, while in some new non-tariff barriers, China's exports encountered resistance is increasing. For China's export enterprises, not only increase the cost of obtaining market access to importing countries and consumption. To the current social barriers in the quite striking SA8000 standard (social responsibility standards) as an example, the world's large purchasing groups are very favorable to have SA8000 certified enterprise products, corporate social responsibility has increasingly appeared in many multinational orders in the additional conditions, which forces many enterprises to invest huge human, material and financial resources to apply for and maintain this certification system, which is a waste of social resources. Moreover, compared with traditional trade barriers, new trade barriers can cause more harm than tariffs. New trade barriers can cause a price difference twice as high as the percentage of price increase caused by tariffs and quotas. In addition, in foreign relations, if a country erects new import barriers, other governments are able to retaliate against them in the same way, especially after the outbreak of trade wars, where both sides put up higher and higher trade barriers against each other. In this day and age, the cost of international disputes caused by new trade barriers is also increasing.
Second, the impact of China's foreign trade in the main barriers
(a) technical barriers to trade
In all shapes and sizes of the new trade barriers, technical barriers to the threshold is increasing, and gradually become the future of China's foreign trade development of the biggest obstacles, the cost and risk of loss brought about by the trend of increasing year by year.
Technical barriers to trade (referred to as technical barriers), refers to a country to maintain national security, safeguard human health, protect the ecological environment, to ensure product quality, etc., to take some of the technical measures to prevent other countries to freely enter the country's market, specifically expressed as harsh technical standards, strict certification system, cumbersome inspection and quarantine procedures. At present, technical barriers have become the biggest obstacle to constrain the growth of China's exports, we must attach great importance to, and take effective measures to effectively address.
1, technical standards and technical barriers to trade. With the development of international trade and scientific and technological progress, technical barriers to trade has become the main body of international trade barriers, and technical standards have become an important means of setting technical barriers to trade.
Technical standards refers to the recognized (the provisions of the product or the production process and method of the relevant) rules guide or agency approved for *** with the same and repeated use, not mandatory requirements for their consistency with a document. Traditionally, technical standards and technical standardization activities were regarded as the technical basis for the organization of production by enterprises and the carrier of their production know-how. Today technical standardization is widely recognized by the public as an indispensable language and tool for accelerating trade in complex products. Export products are only allowed to be imported if they meet the technical standards set by the importing country. Thus achieving its purpose of restricting or preventing the import of goods.
In order to hinder the import of foreign products, to protect their own markets, many countries have developed a wide range of strict standards, regulations, and even laws that clearly stipulate that imports must meet the standards of the importing country. At present, the European Union has more than 100,000 technical standards, including Germany's industrial standards of about 15,000; according to the results of a survey in Japan in March 1994, Japan has about 8,184 industrial standards and 397 agricultural standards; the United States is currently recognized as the rule of law, the regulations of the country is relatively sound, and its technical standards and regulations are quite a lot of and very complicated. Developing countries due to economic and technological conditions, many products are difficult to meet the standards of developed industrial countries. These standards of developed countries often become de facto technical barriers. In addition, the technical barriers of developed countries are getting more and more detailed and the indexes are getting higher and higher. The EU's OKO-100 textile ecological standards for clothing and textiles in the content of certain substances as high as PPB level, such as the requirements for styrene is no more than 5 Baker, vinylcyclohexane no more than 5 PPB, which undoubtedly to the developing countries of the textile export trade caused great difficulties. Due to limited technology, it is difficult for developing countries to detect PPB-level substances. If you let the testing organizations in developed countries to test, the cost is quite expensive, the cost increases, thus playing the role of technical barriers.
2, technical barriers to trade caused by technical standards. After joining the WTO, China's exports by foreign TBT restrictions more serious. According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Commerce shows that, affected by technical barriers to trade, in 2004, 71% of China's export enterprises, 39% of export products encountered foreign TBT restrictions, resulting in losses of about 17 billion U.S. dollars, affecting the industry, the enterprises involved in the impact and the impact of the amount of exports are higher than in previous years. EU, the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries of technical barriers to China's export enterprises caused the most obvious losses, accounting for 95% of the total losses. Among them, the EU accounted for the largest share of 40%; the United States and Japan accounted for 27% and 25% respectively.
TBT restrictions caused by the amount of China's export losses, labor-intensive products by the loss is still serious, high-tech and electromechanical products damaged into a clear upward trend. According to statistics, 2002 is the first year of China's accession to the WTO, the industries suffered TBT losses but higher than any previous year, food and soil industry, light industry, electromechanical industry, textile and garment industry, minerals and chemical industry and health care industry, six industries, the number of export enterprises suffered from the TBT restriction of the proportion of as high as 89.7%, 67.4%, 64.7%, 67.2%, 67.2%, 60.1% and 70.6%, respectively. 60.1% and 70.6% respectively.
Currently, China's foreign trade and exports are facing a more severe external environment. In particular, we need to pay attention to the importing countries to improve quarantine standards, increase testing programs as a means of using technical barriers to trade to restrict the export of Chinese products, to protect their own industries is becoming more and more obvious trend.
For example, since August 13, 2005, the European Union 25 countries began to formally implement the "Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment" (referred to as WEEE). Although some member states failed to rush in August 13th to implement this legislation, but the European Commission has ordered the United Kingdom, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Malta and Poland, the eight member states to fully adopt the WEEE Directive immediately, without delay. This will make China's mechanical and electrical industry export threshold and cost are greatly increased, the domestic small and medium-sized enterprises may therefore exit the European market.
WEEE stipulates that from August 13, 2005 onwards, the EU market circulation of electrical and electronic equipment manufacturers (including its importers and distributors) must be in the legal sense of the responsibility to pay for their own end-of-life product recycling costs. From the implementation of the "on the end of life of electrical and electronic equipment directive" countries to develop the charges, the highest recycling costs of refrigerators 20 euros / pieces, washing machines and air conditioning recycling costs of 10 euros / pieces, microwave ovens recycling costs of 5 euros / pieces, other small home appliances recycling costs of 1 euro / pieces, which will lead to an overall increase in the price of home appliance exports by about 10%.
It should be recognized that the technical requirements put forward by these countries are basically reasonable, at least on the surface does not violate the WTO / TBT agreement, so it is difficult to start the dispute settlement mechanism. It should be noted that all of our exports should be subject to international standards or importing country standards. An important reason why China's TBT-restricted export products are restricted is that the technical standards do not meet international standards or advanced foreign standards. Therefore, to fundamentally solve these problems or to improve the level of technical standards of our enterprises and the competitiveness of enterprise products.
(B) green trade barriers
Green trade barriers refers to the protection of human, animal and plant life, health or safety, protection of the ecology or the environment on the grounds of direct or indirect restrictions or even prohibit trade laws, regulations, policies and measures. Mainly through the setting of very harsh mandatory environmental protection and health quarantine standards to discriminate against foreign goods and restrict their imports. Expressed in the form of environmental technology standards, green packaging system, sanitary and quarantine system, international and regional environmental protection conventions, country-specific regulations and standards, ISO14000 environmental management system and environmental labeling. Green barriers for the purpose of protecting the environment are reasonable in general, in line with the international wave of environmental protection, but it is only from the perspective of environmental protection, with no or little consideration of the impact on trade, and does not harmonize the relationship between trade and the environment well. According to statistics, in 2003, China's exports due to green trade barriers hindered the total value of products amounted to more than 50 billion U.S. dollars.
At present, the international frequently used green trade barriers are: First, "green tariffs", also known as environmental import surtax, refers to the protection of the environment as the reason for the product in addition to the general tariffs levied, and then levy environmental taxes. Second, "green technical standards", difficult to protect the environment in the name of legislation through the formulation of harsh mandatory environmental technical standards to restrict or prohibit the import of foreign goods. Thirdly, "green inspection" refers to the formulation of strict sanitary and quarantine standards by certain countries, especially the very strict requirements on pesticide residues, radioactive substance residues and heavy metal content in food, so as to restrict or prohibit the import of foreign products, especially food. Fourth, mandatory measures, generally imported products, manufacturing environment, methods, processes, etc. do not meet the country's environmental requirements as a reason to force the ban on imports of certain products. Fifth, environmental trade sanctions, i.e., mandatory import restriction measures taken by one country on the grounds that another country has violated international environmental treaties. Sixth, other forms such as environmental licensing systems and environmental quotas. "Green trade barriers" with its covert, technically demanding, flexible and changeable characteristics, is more and more use.
In recent years, the EU has increased its efforts to protect the environment of textiles and clothing, mainly by restricting and banning hazardous chemicals, and by having clear environmental requirements and regulations for all stages of the textile life cycle, including fiber production, cotton cultivation and processing, product processing and manufacturing (such as spinning, weaving, printing, dyeing, washing, ironing, finishing), and consumer use, such as banning a number of Dyes, organic carriers, formaldehyde residues, preservatives, soluble metal residues, pesticide (pesticide) residues of veterinary drugs, dyeing fastness, the prohibition of the use of ozone-depleting substances, the inhibition or elimination of some harmful germs, the pollutants discharged in the process of production can not exceed the national standards, and other items affecting human health (such as the comfort of the clothing wear, breathability, absorbency, softness, non-irritability, etc.). (e.g. comfort, breathability, water absorption, softness, non-irritation, etc.) when wearing the garment. In fact, after the abolition of quotas in 2005, green trade barriers have become the most important barriers in Europe and the United States to replace quotas.
As a developing country, China's export goods are mostly labor- and resource-intensive, so the impact of this technical trade measure on China's foreign trade and the environment is extensive and in-depth. Green trade barriers are a very complex economic phenomenon, and its history and reality are full of paradoxes: it is both discriminatory and legitimate, and has both subjective motives of trade restriction and objective utility to promote the development of environmental protection in various countries. Therefore, its impact on our economy and the environmental field is multiple and uncertain.
The negative effects of green trade barriers on China's foreign trade exports are very obvious, almost all areas of foreign trade exports carried out in China. With the continuous expansion of green barriers, China's export products itself and all aspects of export trade, agricultural exports, food exports, mechanical and electrical products exports, trade in services, eco-labeling and packaging, etc. have been affected by the developed regions and countries of different degrees of environmental regulations. There are two main mechanisms at work here:
1, market access restrictions. That is, developed countries through legislation or the development of harsh environmental technical standards, so that many of our products are difficult to enter their markets to carry out fair competition. In the name of protecting the environment, through legislative means, the development of strict mandatory environmental technical standards to restrict the import of foreign goods. These standards are set in accordance with the production and technological levels of developed countries, which are achievable for developed countries but difficult for developing countries to meet. As a result, they inevitably lead to the exclusion of products from developing countries from the markets of developed countries. At present, China's main trading partners are the United States, Japan, the European Union, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and China's Hong Kong and Taiwan, with whom trade accounts for more than 85% of China's total imports and exports. Most of these countries and regions are members of the World Trade Organization's Committee on Trade and Environment, which is also the most prevalent area of green trade protectionism. This will have a very negative impact on China's foreign trade exports.
2, the impact of international competitiveness. That is, although developed countries do not directly set limits on market access for products and services, but by carrying out green certification, green tariffs and the implementation of the so-called countervailing measures, so that the cost of China's export products greatly increased, and then weakened the international competitiveness of such products, affecting the rate of growth of China's product exports. For example, due to the EU's implementation of new quarantine standards for wooden packaging of goods from China, the cost of Chinese enterprises increased by 10-30%. In addition, the development and implementation of green trade barriers will inevitably involve products from production to sales, use and even end-of-life supervision and testing of all aspects. It requires the principles of environmental science and ecological science to be applied to the whole process of product production, processing, storage, transportation, sales, use and end-of-life treatment, so as to form a complete pollution-free and non-polluting environmental management system. In order to meet the environmental standards of developed countries, China's export products in circulation in the future, had to increase the environmental protection inspection, testing, certification and accreditation procedures and their related costs. The appearance and decoration of products, export inspection and advertising will also be adjusted substantially. In this way, China's exports of various intermediate costs and surcharges will increase significantly, so that the cost of exporting products greatly increased, and thus weakening the international competitiveness of China's exports.
(C) social barriers
Social barriers refer to the labor environment and the right to life as a pretext for workers to take trade protection measures. Social barriers come from the social provisions, the social provisions is not a separate legal document, but the international conventions on social security, treatment of workers, labor rights, labor standards and other aspects of the provisions of the general term, that is, about the social, economic and cultural rights of people, which is complementary to civil and political rights. The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the hundreds of international conventions it has drawn up exhaustively regulate the rights of workers and labor standards. In order to weaken the low-cost competitive advantage of products brought about by enterprises in developing countries as a result of lower labor compensation and deteriorating working conditions, at the 13th World Congress on Occupational Safety and Health held in New Delhi in 1993, the representative of the European Union countries, Germany's Foreign Minister Kinkel, explicitly proposed that human rights, environmental protection, and labor conditions be included in the scope of international trade, and that violators be threatened with trade sanctions in order to induce them to improve workers' economic and social rights. This was the sensational "Social Clause" case at the time. Since then, the North American and European Free Trade Area agreements also provide that only countries and regions that adopt the same labor safety and health standards can participate in the international trade activities of the trade area.
At present, the social barriers in the standard is quite notable social responsibility management system (Social Accountability 8000, referred to as SA8000), the standard from the interpretation of the ISO9000 system, is a kind of protection of the labor environment and conditions, labor rights as the main content of the emerging management standard system. In the name of strengthening social responsibility management, it combines human rights issues with trade through management system certification, and finally achieves the goal of trade protectionism. Companies that pass the validation receive a certificate and are entitled to have the SGS-ICS validation logo and the CEPAA logo printed on the header of their company brochures and company letterhead. In addition, they may receive a copy of the SA8000 certificate for promotional purposes. Europe is in the forefront of the implementation of SA8000, followed by the United States, if exported to the European and American markets, the adoption of the standard is more urgent. At present, the world's largest purchasing group is very favored with SA8000 certified enterprise products, which forces many companies to invest a huge amount of manpower, material and financial resources to apply for and maintain this certification system, which will undoubtedly greatly increase the cost, especially in developing countries, the cost of labor is the biggest comparative advantage, social barriers will greatly weaken the developing countries in the comparative advantage of labor costs.
At present, some developed countries, especially within the European Union countries, some politicians, the relevant media, social organizations continue to exert pressure on the government to instill social awareness in the public, requiring exporters in the production process, such as the employment of child labor, the labor conditions of the workers and labor welfare to clearly specify the test. Some importers, especially importers of brand-name clothing and well-known retailers, have established social codes of conduct for suppliers and corresponding inspection systems within their companies out of the consideration of the above political pressure and the maintenance of the social and public image of their enterprises. The German Importers Association has developed a "Social Code of Conduct", according to which German importers should be authorized by the SA8000 (Social Accountability 8000) Association to inspect the social conduct of their suppliers (exporters), and the Code has been adopted by the French and Dutch importers associations.
At the heart of social barriers is the issue of labor standards, and there has been a long-standing debate in the WTO about the relationship between labor standards and international trade. As early as in the Uruguay Round negotiations, the representatives of some countries in Europe and the United States mentioned the issue of labor standards. A representative viewpoint is that: due to the differences in wage levels, working hours, working environment and safety and health conditions in various countries, countries with low labor standards have low production costs and a relative price advantage in international trade, which will inevitably result in "social dumping" from developing countries to countries with high labor standards. They proposed that, in parallel with the liberalization of international trade, uniform international labour standards should be established in trade agreements and that trade restrictions should be imposed on countries that failed to meet them. Attempts by developed countries to link humanitarian and social issues with international trade and to include them in the WTO*** same guidelines failed at the time due to strong opposition from the majority of developing countries.
Since SA8000 was introduced in August 1997, the development has been extremely rapid. Subsequently, customers in Europe and the United States have asked our export enterprises to meet the requirements of SA8000. In recent years, the number of European and American companies that have proposed SA8000 requirements for our export enterprises has been rising rapidly. However, at present, the production conditions of many Chinese enterprises are difficult to meet the requirements of SA8000. As of March 2004, there are 53 enterprises in China **** have passed the SA8000 certification. These enterprises are mainly distributed in the southeast coastal trade more developed cities.
Currently in our country by the buyers of the most pressure is labor-intensive consumer goods manufacturers, such as garment factories, toy factories, sporting goods factories and shoe factories, etc., at the same time, this trend is rapidly expanding to the entire consumer goods industry and even the manufacturing industry and the food industry. Many multinational companies have publicly stated that they will adopt the SA8000 standard, encouraging suppliers and contract manufacturers to apply for SA8000 certification, and some companies also require contract manufacturers to implement the SA8000 standard timetable. In other words, now promote the implementation of SA8000 in our country is mainly these multinational companies.
Although the purpose of SA800 is good, but in the tariffs and general non-tariffs continue to be cut today, it is very easy to be used by trade protectionists, become a favorable tool to limit the export of labor-intensive products from developing countries. In fact. Trade protectionists have joined hands with human rights organizations to impose all-round restrictions on the exports of textiles and garments, footwear, toys and leather products, small household appliances and other industries of developing countries in the name of SA8000. For example, some foreign human rights organizations take this opportunity to put pressure on importers to import products produced by enterprises that have obtained SA8000 certification; there are also some social groups that require enterprises that fail to meet the requirements of labor standards to levy social anti-dumping duties. China as the production of these types of products in large countries, the level of economic development is low, the protection of labor, although it has begun, but the start is late, and the difference between the developed countries is large, the majority of enterprises, once asked to implement the SA8000, the original competitive advantage will be greatly reduced or no longer exist.
Third, China's export enterprises to cope with the construction of the system
Internationally, this trend of environmental protection on the choice of raw materials for the production of enterprises, the management of the product manufacturing process, product specifications, pollution prevention and control of the production process, the improvement of production technology, the sale of products and recycling, waste disposal and other aspects have a great impact.
In the face of a variety of technical standards, regulations and market consumption tendencies of the pressure, foreign-related enterprises in addition to passive compliance with laws and regulations, more should be incorporated into the enterprise management of international environmental protection norms of the factors, and take the initiative to the environment and resources and the full range of green management mode change, make a good job of clean technology, green products, green packaging, green subsidies, such as planning, to be invincible in the future of the international market. Green management is a combination of macro and micro concepts, is the main management mode in the era of ecological economy. The system consists of a conceptual change and coordination of the monitoring system, the production process monitoring system, the green management system of three subsystems organically combined.