Green trade barriers as a non-tariff barriers in the late 1980s, the 1990s began to rise in various countries, in essence, developed countries in the name of environmental protection, relying on the level of its technology and environmental protection, through legislative means, the development of strict and mandatory technical and environmental standards, some of the commodities of developing countries will be rejected.
China's accession to the WTO, Zhejiang's foreign trade exports hit another record. However, behind the sustained and rapid growth of exports, but lurks a huge hidden danger - international trade barriers. Zhejiang is a large export province, exports of labor-intensive products accounted for a large share of the low level of technology, the export market is too concentrated, all kinds of enterprises and blindly expand exports, resulting in Zhejiang has become China's green trade barriers facing one of the most provinces. Therefore, in the face of increasing green trade barriers, Zhejiang enterprises need to actively think about the reasons and take effective countermeasures to reduce losses.
I, the reasons for the rise of green trade barriers
The so-called green trade barriers refers to the protection of natural resources, biodiversity, as well as the ecological environment and human health, the importing country to protect natural resources, biodiversity, and ecological environment and human health, the implementation of harsh standards on products from abroad, in order to limit or even prohibit the import of means and measures. The main reasons for the formation and development of green trade barriers are as follows:
(a) The deterioration of the world environment has caused changes in human values.
With the acceleration of industrialization, the world's rapid economic growth, the destruction and pollution of resources and the environment have become more and more prominent, such as climate warming, destruction of the ozone layer, the reduction of biodiversity and so on. The existence of these problems directly affects the survival and development of human beings and has aroused widespread concern in the international community. People's way of thinking, consumption behavior and values have changed, focusing on the quality of life and creating a green civilization of new values beyond the narrow anthropocentrism; the growing demand for green products that do not pollute the environment and are harmless to human health. The formation of green values of consumers in developed countries, the demand for green products preference, but also for the formation of green trade barriers in developed countries to provide the conditions and opportunities.
(2), the traditional non-tariff barriers are increasingly being condemned by the international community
Countries in order to make the country's "childish" industry development, "sunset" industry to slow down the decline of the industry with economies of scale to obtain excess profits. In order to make their own "infantile" industries to develop, "sunset" industries to slow down the decline, so that industries with economies of scale to obtain excessive profits, have not given up trade protection. However, with the operation of the GATT and the World Trade Organization, as tariffs continue to decrease, non-tariff barriers are subject to more restrictions, and the space for the application of traditional trade barriers is getting smaller and smaller. Under such circumstances, developed countries, for their own interests, began to seek new trade protection measures. Green trade barriers came into being, and became the fastest growing trade barriers in various countries.
(3) The existence of various green organizations and their political influence
As early as the 1970s, the United States set up two youth environmental protection organizations, launched the protection of the Earth's ecological balance of the "Earth Day" activities. Since then, green organizations have been established in various countries. The emergence of these green organizations and green political parties has gradually become a political force that cannot be ignored, and their speeches and actions have a direct impact on government policies and the political status and careers of the political parties and their leaders. As a result, many political parties have begun to incorporate environmental protection policies into their own policy systems, politicizing environmental issues and inevitably involving the economic and trade spheres. At the same time, the governments of developed countries are also pressured by domestic producers of the products in question, together promoting the formation of green trade barriers.
(4), the differences in environmental standards
Due to the different levels of development of productive forces in different countries, the economy is at different stages of development, the ability to carry out environmental protection and the demand for environmental quality there is a huge difference in the severity of the various environmental problems in different countries are also different, which determines the different countries of the environmental standards are uneven, difficult to harmonize. Different environmental standards, resulting in different costs of environmental protection costs internalized by enterprises, directly affecting the cost of production of products, and the level of production costs directly related to the international competitiveness of products, affecting a country's balance of payments and macroeconomic stability. Therefore, the issue of environmental standards has become an international issue of wide concern to all countries.
Developed countries after a long period of economic development, social productivity and awareness of environmental protection is much higher than that of developing countries. Although the provisions and implementation of environmental standards in developed countries are very strict, but the impact on the competitiveness of their products is minimal; but for the vast number of developing countries have a huge impact. Therefore, in order to restrict the imports of products from developing countries, developed countries set up green trade barriers to provide a pretext to achieve the role of trade protection.
(E), the existing international trade rules and agreements are imperfect, lack of binding
Trade and environmental issues is an extremely complex and very sensitive issues. For a long time countries from their respective economic interests, in order to obtain a favorable position in the trade-related environmental standards, therefore, although after many discussions and negotiations, but it is difficult to reach agreement