A senior official yesterday warned against some foreign
countries playing up China's product quality issues and using them
as trade barriers to protect their domestic trade interests.
"Exaggerating individual cases and doubting the quality of all
made-in-China products has hurt our reputation and caused economic
losses to our exporters," Qi Xiuqin, director of international
cooperation department of the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), said.
She quoted a GAQSIQ report saying more than 30 percent of a
sample of 2,500 Chinese exporters suffered economic losses from the
imposition of technical trade barriers last year.
The companies lost US$35.9 billion last year, up from $28.8
billion in 2005, according to a report published yesterday.
Industries particularly affected were the mechanical and
electrical sectors, agriculture and food, chemical and mining,
plastic and leather.
Guangdong was said to be the most affected province, followed by
Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing and Fujian, the report said.
Among China's major trade partners, technical trade barriers set
up by the European Union, the United States, Japan, Russia and the
Association of Southeast Asia Nations have had the biggest
influence, it said.
The WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the
Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
(SPS) allow members to set regulations and standards for the
specific characteristics of a product, such as its size, shape,
design, function and performance.
Export products that fail to meet standards in the markets they
are destined for will be denied entry to those markets.
In recent years, WTO members have raised technical standards
more frequently, which has made it difficult for developing
countries to adjust.
China received 875 TBT notifications from WTO members last year,
up 13 percent from 2005.
The number of SPS notifications was 1,156, up 36 percent from
2005.
"Not all technical barriers are inappropriate and negative but
some are used for trade protection and have had a bad influence on
Chinese exporters," GAQSIQ's Yang Song said.
To reduce the impact of technical barriers China will flag
inappropriate notifications to WTO members, before adopting other
measures such as bilateral negotiations and dispute-resolution
mechanisms, Yang said.
(China Daily September 12, 2007)