This paper expounds that technical barriers have gradually replaced non-tariff barriers such as tariffs and become the main body of international trade barriers, and will exist and develop for a long time. Explore the important role of technical standards in international trade; Suggestions on strengthening the construction of China's technical standard system, perfecting and formulating China's technical standards are put forward.
Keywords: technical standards, technical barriers, international trade
With the development of economic globalization and trade liberalization, especially after China joined the WTO, China's international trade has become more frequent, and the export volume of enterprises has increased rapidly. However, while enjoying the convenience brought by trade liberalization, China enterprises also deeply feel that the obstacles from technical standards are getting bigger and bigger. A considerable number of products frequently encounter technical barriers dominated by foreign technical standards, and their exports are blocked one after another, and some are even forced to withdraw from the market. According to the survey, in 2002, 7 1% of China's export enterprises and 39% of its export products were restricted by foreign technical barriers, resulting in a loss of $654,380+07 billion, equivalent to 5.2% of that year's exports. Technical barriers based on technical standards have become the main barriers of international trade today.
1 development trend of international trade barriers
1. 1 In today's international trade, trade barriers are undergoing structural changes, and technical barriers have become the main body of international trade barriers.
In international economic exchanges, the main factor affecting international trade is trade barriers. International trade barriers are divided into tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers, and technical barriers are one of the main forms of non-tariff barriers. Technical barriers are mainly supported by technology, which refers to some technical measures taken by a country on the grounds of national security, safeguarding human health and safety, protecting ecological environment, preventing fraud and ensuring product quality. Technical barriers appear in the form of technical standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures, and their main contents and forms are technical standards. Standards and technical barriers to intellectual property have the characteristics of rationality, concealment, complexity and flexibility.
In today's international trade, the role of tariff barriers is increasingly restricted. The balance of trade protectionism has shifted from tariff barriers to non-tariff barriers, and tariff barriers have gradually been replaced by non-tariff barriers. Among the non-tariff barriers, such as direct use of import quotas, import licenses and other measures to restrict imports, they are often condemned by international public opinion and vulnerable to reciprocal retaliation, so they are less and less. However, due to its rationality and concealment, technical barriers are often used by developed countries to protect trade, thus gradually becoming a new trade barrier to replace non-tariff barriers such as tariffs, a major means and form of trade protectionism in developed countries, and an important factor affecting the development of international trade in the 2 1 century. Among the non-tariff barriers that affected China's international trade in 1970s, only 10% ~ 30% were technical barriers to trade, and this proportion gradually increased after 1990s. At present, at least two-thirds of China's import and export enterprises are affected by foreign technical barriers.
1.2 technical barriers will exist for a long time and continue to develop.
Technical barriers are the inevitable product of the development of international trade to a certain stage. In order to adapt to social progress, meet the needs of economic development and human self-protection, setting up technical barriers to maintain trade order and promote development has been recognized by WTO and has legitimacy. At the same time, with the internationalization of technical standards in various countries, some technical barriers will be eliminated, but new technical barriers will be constantly generated and updated with the development of science and technology and the requirements of safety and environmental protection, which determines that technical barriers will exist and develop in international trade for a long time. Moreover, some developed countries often take all kinds of "standards" as the reason, take patented technology as the shield, constantly formulate harsh technical standards by virtue of their technical advantages, and take advantage of their leading position in international standards bodies to incorporate their own technical regulations, technical standards and testing methods into international standards as much as possible, set up and use technical standards to restrict foreign trade exports of other countries, and then weaken the cost advantage of developing countries by means of technical barriers, thus completing the process of transforming from simple tariff barriers to complex technical barriers. This is also a factor for the long-standing and continuous development of technical barriers in international trade.
2 the importance of technical standards in international trade
In today's international trade, trade disputes surrounding technical barriers are increasing day by day. On the surface, it is a trade dispute, and the essence behind it is the dispute over technical standards. As the main form of technical barriers, technical standards have played an important role in international trade in recent years. In the traditional concept, technical standards are mainly to ensure the interchangeability and universality of products. Today, technical standards have gone far beyond the concepts of universality and interchangeability of parts, and become more technical barriers for a country to implement trade protection, and even become an important factor restricting a country's economic development and international competitiveness.
2. 1 As a technical barrier, technical standards play a dual role in international trade.
In international trade, technical standards, as the basis for testing whether products conform to standards and regulations, have the functions of promoting trade development and arbitration as the basis for arbitration. But once it becomes a technical barrier, it is more of a protection or barrier (or monopoly). (1) protection function According to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement), countries can formulate technical standards that are in line with their national conditions according to their actual conditions, such as language, region and national customs. This technical standard can protect national security, prevent fraud, protect personal health and safety, protect the life and health of animals and plants, protect the environment, and protect the national industry and national economic interests at the same time, thus constituting trade protection for itself and having a positive protective effect. (2) Barriers or monopolies. Some countries use their own advantages in economy, technology and patents to set some harsh or patented technical indicators, intentionally or unintentionally restrict the import of products from other countries, or monopolize the technology of a certain industry. At this time, technical standards have played a negative barrier or monopoly role. Today, this practice is often adopted by developed countries, and developing countries become its victims. For example, in the OKO—-Eco-Textile Standard 100 of the European Union, it is required that the content of certain substances in clothing and textiles should be as high as PPb, and that styrene should not exceed 5PPb and ethylene cycloethane should not exceed 2PPb, which undoubtedly causes great difficulties to the textile export trade of developing countries. On the one hand, it is difficult for developing countries to control the level of PPb due to limited technology; On the other hand, due to the limitation of economic and experimental conditions, it is impossible to detect substances of PPb level. If the testing institutions in developed countries are expensive, the cost will inevitably increase. Another example is the international standard in the field of CDMA mobile communication, behind which are more than 400 patents of/kloc-0 of Qualcomm. Enterprises should adopt his patents while adopting this standard. In many cases, technical standards are a "double-edged sword" at the same time, which has both positive protection functions and negative barriers and monopoly functions. It is a protective function for me, and a barrier or monopoly function for you.
2.2 To a certain extent, technical standards have become an important factor restricting national economic development and national economic competitiveness. In today's society, whoever has the right to formulate technical standards can effectively grasp the initiative of competition and obtain the greatest economic benefits. That's what' the winner wins the world' means. Because technical standards often determine the technical route of a product or even an industry, once technical standards are formulated, everyone can only follow this technical route and affect related industries. Especially when the standard contains patented technology and rises to the international standard, the benefits it brings directly reflect the interests of the country. At the end of last year, the Ministry of Information Industry of China issued its own WAPI wireless LAN standard, which caused an uproar in the IT circles of China and the United States. Its essence is the dispute between Wi-Fi WLAN standard led by American big enterprises and WAPI WLAN standard advocated by our government. For example, in recent years, the patent fee incident in China's DVD industry, because the international standard of DVD is formulated and controlled by Europe and America, every product produced by Chinese enterprises needs to pay a certain patent fee. These are the power of "technical standards"! As Xu Guanhua, Minister of Science and Technology, said: "In today's world, whoever has the right to formulate standards will have the initiative in technological and economic competition to a certain extent." . Therefore, to a certain extent, technical standards are not only technical issues, but also have risen to the height of international economic and trade relations, which has become an important factor restricting the country's foreign trade and national economic competitiveness.
3. Strengthen the construction of China's technical standard system, improve and formulate China's technical standards.
Since technical barriers with technical standards as the main content and form have gradually replaced non-tariff barriers such as tariffs as the main body of international trade barriers, and will exist and develop for a long time, and technical standards play an important role in today's international trade, then we should fully understand and attach importance to technical standards and build technical standards that are conducive to China's international trade and enhance China's international competitiveness. That is to say, while encouraging enterprises to adopt international advanced technical standards as soon as possible, they should actively participate in international standardization activities and the revision of international standards, strive to incorporate China's national standards into international standards, and improve and formulate China's technical standards.
At present, many developed countries have turned their attention to standards and established their own technical barriers to trade system by establishing technical elements and technical indicators in technical standards. We should also make full use of the limited intervention principle and preferential policies for developing countries in the TBT agreement, improve and formulate China's technical standards and establish our own technical barrier system on the premise of promoting technological progress; We will set some technical indicators unique to China's national conditions that can be achieved by China enterprises but not by foreign enterprises as national standards, and at the same time protect national industries reasonably. For a country, without its own technical standard system and technical barriers, it is like an undefended city.
At present, most products in China are actually produced according to the technical standards of western countries, especially the United States, which can save development costs and rapidly expand market share in a short period of time; But in the long run, this "following the trend" will always make enterprises become "wage earners" of others, and even threaten national security and interests. Besides, we have a huge market. When we formulate our own technical standards, some foreign enterprises will tend to accept our technical standards in order to ensure that they will not be abandoned by the China market. Some small countries will also be attracted by China's technical standards, especially neighboring countries in Asia. Because the markets of these countries are very small, it is difficult to form an independent scale market effect, so we must rely on those countries with huge market potential. In order to gain the first chance in the huge business opportunities in China market, enterprises in these countries will inevitably adopt China's technical standards. In this way, China's technical standards will be recognized by everyone, even if they can't become international standards, they will become recognized factual standards, and will play an important role in China's international trade in the long run.
refer to
1 Ye Berlin. How to deal with technical barriers in international trade? China standardization, 200 1.
Guangdong Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, www.gdqts.gov.cn/wto.asp.
3 www.finance.sina.com.cn/ Sina.com