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Under the influence of the global economic crisis, trade protectionism has risen. With the improvement of import standards in Europe and America, many food export enterprises are facing reshuffle, and small and medium-sized enterprises will be blocked by "green barriers". This year's Mid-Autumn Festival, some mooncake manufacturers even tried their best to avoid the new US regulations and export them before June 22nd. For the "green trade barriers" implemented abroad, some enterprises complain that trade protectionism has harmed them, and many even suggest that the Ministry of Commerce formulate anti-sanction measures and implement trade retaliation in time.

First, the mechanism and nature of green trade barriers

"Green barrier" is a trade protection measure for commodity importing countries to restrict the import of foreign products in the name of protecting human health and the environment in modern international trade by issuing and implementing strict environmental protection regulations and harsh environmental protection technical standards. "Green trade barriers" are rooted in the need to protect the ecological environment and national health. Because of its unique dual function: it can protect both the environment and domestic products and markets, it has gradually replaced traditional non-tariff barriers such as tariffs, export quotas and licensing systems, and has become an important non-tariff trade barrier in international trade, which has been adopted by developed countries.

Green trade barriers have the function of controlling the quantity and price of imported goods, that is, by formulating strict green standards and measures to limit the import of goods and increase the cost of imported goods, thus increasing the price of imported goods and reducing international competitiveness. Mainly in three aspects: 1. Introduce authentication system. The different certification systems in different countries make China enterprises have to pay a lot of fees when applying for certification and inspection and quarantine, which directly increases the export cost; 2. Frequent changes in environmental protection standards and regulations in various countries have led to the need for China enterprises to re-certify, or even change equipment or technological processes, which has increased the adaptation cost; 3. The requirement of recycling waste packaging materials in time also increases the expenditure of enterprises in packaging and waste treatment.

Second, Cantonese-style mooncake exports encounter green barriers and their characteristics

Next, from the end of 2009 1, the United States cancelled all import certificates of poultry products, and on June 22nd, the new food import standards were officially implemented, which triggered a series of reactions from many mooncake manufacturers in Guangdong to analyze the impact of green barriers on China's food exports.

1. All green trade barriers are advertised as protecting world resources, ecological environment and human health, thus catering to the public psychology. 2. Formally legalized. Compared with other non-tariff barriers, green trade barriers often take the form of open legislation in China.

When the new American regulations were introduced, Canada, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and other countries also stipulated that imported moon cake fillings should not contain egg yolk, and Australia also stipulated that moon cake fillings should not contain meat; France, Germany, Thailand, Sweden, Colombia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and other countries explicitly prohibit the acceptance and delivery of China moon cakes.

Since 2007, the export of moon cakes has fluctuated greatly, and many countries are wary of moon cakes. The number of sampling inspections has increased from once or twice a year to once a quarter; The requirement of European Union for aflatoxin B 1 in moon cakes containing dried fruits is much higher than that in China. Japan has higher requirements for sweeteners, bleaches and preservatives than in previous years.

Although the same environmental standards are applied to similar products at home and abroad, it is obviously unreasonable to ask developing countries to adopt the environmental standards of developed countries at this stage. In a sense, it is a technical discrimination against backward countries.

Third, the quality of exported moon cakes.

From the Guanshengyuan incident in Nanjing to the production of moon cakes in black dens, until now, the quality of moon cakes has been a big problem that has long plagued the healthy development of this industry. Although the new "Food Safety Law" requires that all ingredients and processing methods be marked in detail on the mooncake packaging to ensure consumers' right to know. However, the quality problems of moon cakes still can't get out of the shadow of food safety hazards, and major food safety incidents emerge one after another. The China Chamber of Commerce found that 40% of the mooncake products sold online had problems in food safety indicators, and even some fake and "three noes" mooncakes were sold wildly online, with serious harmful indicators exceeding 1000 times. Therefore, we should reflect on the quality of mooncake export.

Four, the relevant departments and export enterprises should take countermeasures

We might as well take the blocked export of moon cakes as an opportunity to conduct a comprehensive "physical examination" on the quality of moon cakes nationwide, and severely punish the production enterprises with inferior quality and insecure quality in accordance with the Food Safety Law. Vigorously implement the strategy of "winning by quality" and "brand" and firmly establish the concept of "quality first" Vigorously promote ISO series international standard certification, and actively guide enterprises to carry out relevant certification. If it passes the ISO 14000 environmental management system certification, it will be a brand-building enterprise behavior, which will improve the brand value and competitiveness of enterprises. The government should increase investment in science and technology to provide technical support for the production and processing of food industry. The overall level of economic and technological development in developing countries is relatively low. As far as the production process of products is concerned, the problems of high consumption and high pollution cannot be solved quickly in a short time, and the enhancement of technological innovation ability cannot be achieved overnight. However, in order to export products and meet the strict environmental protection technical standards of developed countries, foreign trade enterprises in developing countries have to pay a lot of indirect expenses such as inspection, testing, evaluation and purchase of equipment, as well as a lot of direct expenses such as certification application fees and annual fees for logo use.

Draw lessons from foreign legislative experience, improve environmental protection technical regulations, raise environmental protection standards, establish inspection and quarantine system, improve early warning mechanism, establish green barrier investigation system, and effectively strengthen the management of food industry, so that China's food exports can settle down in an invincible position in the fierce international competition.

We still have a long way to go on the road to deal with green barriers, but we believe that as long as we attach great importance to it and take active and effective measures, we will certainly be able to turn challenges into opportunities, turn a big agricultural trade country into a strong agricultural trade country, and finally "advance by leaps and bounds" in the sea of free trade.