With the deepening of global economic integration, many countries have established free trade areas or customs unions, and tariff and non-tariff barriers to all goods in the region have been completely or partially abolished, such as between the European Union, the United States and Canada. This trend is strengthening. Under the background of global trade liberalization, in order to protect domestic industries from or reduce external shocks, many countries have taken measures to restrict foreign products from entering their own markets.
According to the statistics of the Foreign Economic Research Department of the State Council Development Research Center, China's foreign trade scale has ranked third in the world, becoming the third largest trading country after the United States and Japan. At the same time, China's foreign trade friction incidents have gradually increased. Anti-dumping complaints and various trade barriers raised by some countries from time to time have brought great challenges to China's product export.
I. Various new trade barriers
The so-called new trade barriers are relative to traditional trade barriers. It mainly refers to all new non-tariff barriers that hinder the free flow of international goods, including green barriers and social barriers. Traditional trade barriers refer to tariff barriers and traditional non-tariff barriers, such as high tariffs, quotas, licenses, anti-dumping and countervailing.
The fundamental characteristics of traditional trade barriers different from new trade barriers are: the former mainly limits the quantity and price of goods, which is more reflected in the interests of goods and businesses, and the measures taken are mostly border measures; The latter often pays attention to things other than commercial interests such as the quantity and price of commodities, and pays more attention to the impact of commodities on human health, safety and environment, reflecting social interests and environmental interests. The measures taken are not only border measures, but also domestic policies and regulations. The main contents include technical barriers, green barriers and social barriers.
Table 1 Main types of new trade barriers
Serial number type
1, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)
2. Green trade barriers
3. Social barriers
4. Barriers to trade in services
5. Intellectual property protection
6. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures
7. Customs barriers
8. Trade remedy measures
9. Export restrictions
10, government procurement
1 1, other obstacles
With the emergence and development of new trade barriers, trade barriers are undergoing structural changes. Traditional trade barriers are gradually divided, among which barriers such as tariffs, quotas and licenses are gradually weakened, while traditional trade barriers such as anti-dumping continue to exist for a long time and have a trend of upgrading and strengthening. New trade barriers with technical barriers as the core will exist for a long time and continue to develop, and will gradually replace 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 a policy tool of trade protectionism in some countries, it will be one of the main "problems" for developing countries, especially large developing countries like China. Facts show that most enterprises in China are not adaptable to more and more new rules of international trade.
Since 200 1 China joined the WTO, traditional barriers, such as product quantity restrictions and tariffs, have gradually reduced the restrictions on China products, while some new non-tariff barriers have increased the resistance to China products export. For China's export enterprises, it not only increases the cost of obtaining market access of importing countries. Take SA8000 standard (social responsibility standard), which is quite striking in terms of social barriers, as an example. The products of SA8000 certified enterprises are favored by large global purchasing groups, and corporate social responsibility has increasingly appeared in the additional conditions of many multinational companies' orders, forcing many enterprises to invest huge manpower, material resources and financial resources to apply for and maintain this certification system, which is a waste of social resources. In addition, compared with traditional trade barriers, the price difference caused by new trade barriers is twice the percentage of price increase caused by tariffs and quotas. In addition, in foreign relations, if a country sets new import barriers, other governments can retaliate against it in the same way, especially after the outbreak of trade war, both sides will set higher and higher trade barriers for each other. Nowadays, the cost of international disputes caused by new trade barriers is getting higher and higher.
Second, the main obstacles affecting China's foreign trade
(A) Technical barriers to trade
Among all kinds of new trade barriers, the threshold of technical barriers is increasing day by day, which is gradually becoming the biggest obstacle to China's foreign trade development in the future, and its cost and risk loss are also increasing year by year.
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) refers to the technical measures taken by a country to prevent goods from other countries from entering the country's market freely on the grounds of safeguarding national security, safeguarding human health, protecting ecological environment and ensuring product quality, which are embodied in harsh technical standards, strict certification system and cumbersome inspection and quarantine procedures. At present, technical barriers have become the biggest obstacle to China's export growth, and we must attach great importance to them and take effective measures to solve them.
1, technical standards and technical barriers to trade. With the development of international trade and the progress of science and technology, technical barriers to trade have become the main body of international trade barriers, and technical standards have also become an important means to set up technical barriers to trade.
Technical standards refer to documents approved by recognized rules, guidelines or institutions (specifying products or related production processes and methods) and repeatedly used by * * *, and are not forced to be consistent with them. Traditional technical standards and technical standardization activities are considered as the technical basis for enterprises to organize production and the carrier of production technical know-how. Nowadays, technical standardization, as an indispensable language and tool to accelerate the trade of complex products, has been widely recognized by the public. Export products are only allowed to be imported if they meet the technical standards set by the importing country. So as to achieve the purpose of restricting or preventing the import of goods.
In order to hinder the import of foreign products and protect the domestic market, many countries have formulated many strict standards and regulations, and even passed laws clearly stipulating that imported goods must meet the standards of importing countries. At present, there are more than 6,543,800 technical standards in the European Union, including about 6,543,800 industrial standards in Germany. According to the investigation results of 1994 in Japan in March, there are about 8 184 industrial standards and 397 agricultural products standards in Japan. The United States is currently recognized as a country with a relatively sound legal system and regulations, and its technical standards and regulations are quite numerous and complicated. Due to the limitation of economic and technical conditions, it is difficult for many products in developing countries to meet the standards of developed industrial countries. These standards often become de facto technical barriers in developed countries. In addition, the technical barriers in developed countries are getting thinner and thinner, and the indicators are getting higher and higher. In the European Union's Oko- 100 textile ecological standard, the content of some substances in clothing and textiles is required to be as high as PPB, for example, the requirement for styrene is not more than 5 beck, and the requirement for ethylene cycloethane is not more than 5PPB, which undoubtedly causes great difficulties to the textile export trade of developing countries. Due to limited technology, it is difficult for developing countries to detect PPB substances. If it is tested by testing institutions in developed countries, the cost is quite expensive and the cost increases, thus playing the role of technical barriers.
2. Technical barriers to trade caused by technical standards. After China's entry into WTO, China's exports are more severely restricted by foreign technical barriers to trade. According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Commerce, in 2004, 7 1% of China's export enterprises and 39% of its export products were restricted by foreign TBT, resulting in a loss of about 654,380+07 billion US dollars, which had a greater impact on industries, enterprises and export quotas than in previous years. The technical barriers of the European Union, the United States, Japan and South Korea have caused the most obvious losses to China's export enterprises, accounting for 95% of the total losses. Among them, the EU has the largest share, accounting for 40%; The United States and Japan account for 27% and 25% respectively.
TBT has limited the amount of export losses caused by China. The losses of labor-intensive products are still serious, and the damage of high-tech and mechanical and electrical products shows an obvious upward trend. According to statistics, 2002 was the first year of China's accession to the WTO, but the losses suffered by various industries were higher than any previous year. In the six industries of food, animal husbandry, light industry, electromechanical, textile and garment, Minmetals chemical industry and medical care, the proportion of export enterprises restricted by TBT is as high as 89.7%, 67.4%, 64.7%, 67.2% and 60.655% respectively.
At present, China's foreign trade export is facing a more severe external environment. What needs special attention is that there is an increasingly obvious trend for importing countries to restrict the export of China products and protect their own industries by raising quarantine standards and increasing testing items.
For example, on August 13, 2005, 25 EU countries formally implemented WEEE. Although some member countries failed to implement this legislation on August 3rd, 65438+, Council of Europe has made eight member countries, namely Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Malta and Poland, fully adopt the WEEE directive immediately without delay. This will greatly raise the export threshold and cost of China's electromechanical industry, and domestic small and medium-sized enterprises may withdraw from the European market.
WEEE stipulates that from August 13, 2005, the manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment circulating in the EU market (including their importers and distributors) must bear the legal responsibility of paying the recycling fees of their scrapped products. According to the charging standards formulated by countries that have implemented the Directive on Scrap Electronic and Electrical Equipment, the recycling cost of refrigerators is up to 20 euros/piece, that of washing machines and air conditioners is 1 euro/piece, that of microwave ovens is 5 euros/piece, and that of other small household appliances is1euro/piece, which will lead to an overall increase in the export price of household appliances/kloc-0.
It should be admitted that the technical requirements put forward by these countries are basically reasonable, at least on the surface, they do not violate the WTO/TBT agreement, so it is difficult to start the dispute settlement mechanism. It should be pointed out that all our export products should meet international standards or the standards of importing countries. An important reason why China's export products are restricted by TBT is that the technical standards do not meet the international standards or foreign advanced standards. Therefore, to fundamentally solve these problems, we must improve the technical standards and product competitiveness of enterprises in China.
(B) Green trade barriers
Green trade barriers refer to laws, regulations, policies and measures that directly or indirectly restrict or even prohibit trade on the grounds of protecting the life, health or safety of human beings, animals and plants, and protecting the ecology or environment. It discriminates against foreign goods, and mainly restricts their import by formulating very strict compulsory environmental protection and health and quarantine standards. It is embodied in environmental technical standards, green packaging system, health and quarantine system, international and regional environmental conventions, national regulations and standards, ISO 14000 environmental management system and environmental labeling. Generally speaking, the green barriers aimed at protecting the environment are reasonable and in line with the international trend of environmental protection. However, it only considers the impact on trade from the perspective of environmental protection, and does not coordinate the relationship between trade and environment well. According to statistics, in 2003, the total value of products blocked by green trade barriers reached more than 50 billion US dollars.
At present, the green trade barriers commonly used in the world mainly include: first, the "green tariff", also known as the environmental import surcharge, refers to the environmental tax levied on products on the grounds of protecting the environment in addition to the general tariff. Second, in the name of "green technical standards", it is difficult to protect the environment, and harsh mandatory environmental technical standards are formulated through legislative means to restrict or prohibit the import of foreign goods. Third, "green inspection" means that some countries set strict health and quarantine standards, especially for pesticide residues, radioactive substances residues and heavy metals in food, and restrict or prohibit the import of foreign products, especially food. Fourth, compulsory measures generally prohibit the import of certain products on the grounds that the manufacturing environment, methods and processes of imported products do not meet the environmental requirements of the country. Fifth, environmental trade sanctions, that is, compulsory import restrictions taken by one country on the grounds that another country violates international environmental treaties. Sixth, environmental permit system, environmental quota and other forms. "Green trade barrier" is used more and more because of its strong concealment, high technical requirements and strong flexibility.
In recent years, the European Union has strengthened the protection of textiles and clothing environment, mainly by restricting and prohibiting harmful chemicals, and has clear environmental requirements and regulations for all stages of textile life cycle, including fiber production, cotton planting and processing, product processing and manufacturing (such as spinning, weaving, printing, dyeing, washing, ironing and finishing) and consumer use. For example, some dyes, organic packaging carriers, formaldehyde residues, preservatives, soluble metal residues, pesticide (insecticide) and veterinary drug residues, dyeing fastness, the use of substances that destroy the ozone layer, the inhibition or elimination of some harmful bacteria, the pollutants discharged in the production process cannot exceed the national standards and other items that have an impact on human health (such as comfort, breathability, water absorption, softness, no irritation, etc.). In fact, after the abolition of quotas in 2005, green trade barriers have become the most important barriers to replace quotas in Europe and America.
As a developing country, China's export commodities are mostly labor-intensive and resource-intensive products, so this technical trade measure has a wide and in-depth impact on China's foreign trade and environment. Green trade barrier is a very complicated economic phenomenon, and its history and reality are full of paradoxes: it has both discrimination and legitimacy, both subjective motives of trade restrictions and objective effects of promoting the development of environmental protection in various countries. Therefore, its impact on China's economy and environment is multiple and uncertain.
The negative impact of green trade barriers on China's foreign trade export is very obvious, affecting almost all areas of China's foreign trade export. With the continuous expansion of green barriers, China's export products and all aspects of export trade, such as agricultural products export, food export, mechanical and electrical products export, service trade, ecological labeling and packaging, are affected by environmental protection laws and regulations in developed regions and countries to varying degrees. There are two main working mechanisms:
1, market access restrictions. That is, developed countries have made it difficult for many products in China to enter their markets for fair competition through legislation or harsh environmental technical standards. In the name of environmental protection, strict mandatory technical standards for environmental protection are formulated by legislative means to restrict the import of foreign goods. These standards are formulated according to the production and technical level of developed countries, which are achievable for developed countries and difficult for developing countries. Therefore, it will inevitably lead to the products of developing countries being excluded 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, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Province Province, and their trade volume accounts for more than 85% of China's total import and export. Most of these countries and regions are members of the Committee on Trade and Environment of the World Trade Organization, and green trade protectionism is the most prevalent area. This will have a very negative impact on China's foreign trade export.
2. The impact of international competitiveness. That is, although developed countries have not directly restricted the market access of products and services, they have greatly increased the cost of China's export products by carrying out green certification, levying green tariffs and implementing so-called countervailing measures, thus weakening the international competitiveness of such products and affecting the growth rate of China's export products. For example, the cost of enterprises in China has increased by 65,438+00%-30% due to the implementation of new quarantine standards for wooden packaging of goods from China by the European Union. In addition, the formulation and implementation of green trade barriers will inevitably involve the supervision and testing of products from production to sales, use and even scrapping. It requires applying the principles of environmental science and ecological science to the whole process of product production, processing, storage, transportation, sales, use and scrapping, thus forming a complete pollution-free and pollution-free environmental management system. In order to meet the environmental protection standards of developed countries, China's export products will have to increase the inspection, testing, certification and appraisal procedures and related expenses related to environmental protection in the future. The appearance decoration, export inspection and advertising of products will also be greatly adjusted. In this way, all kinds of intermediate costs and additional costs of China's export products will greatly increase, thus greatly increasing the export cost of products and weakening the international competitiveness of China's export products.
(3) Social obstacles
Social barriers refer to trade protection measures taken under the pretext of workers' working environment and survival rights. Social barriers come from social provisions, which are not a single legal document, but general provisions on social security, workers' treatment, labor rights and labor standards in international conventions, that is, the social, economic and cultural rights of relevant personnel, and are a supplement to civil and political rights. The International Labour Organization and its hundreds of international conventions have made detailed provisions on the rights and labor standards of workers. In order to weaken the low-cost competitive advantage of products brought by enterprises in developing countries due to lower labor remuneration and worse working conditions, at the 13 World Occupational Safety and Health Conference held in New Delhi in 1993, German Foreign Minister kinkel explicitly proposed that human rights, environmental protection and working conditions should be included in the scope of international trade, threatening violators with trade sanctions and urging them to improve workers' economic and social rights. This was the "social clause" incident that was quite sensational at that time. Since then, the North American and European Free Trade Area Agreement also stipulates 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 responsibility management system (SA8000 for short) is an eye-catching standard in terms of social barriers. This standard originated from ISO9000 system, which is a new management standard system with the main content of protecting working environment and conditions and labor rights and interests. In the name of strengthening social responsibility management, human rights issues are combined with trade through management system certification, and finally the purpose of trade protectionism is achieved. Companies that pass the demonstration will get certificates and have the right to print SGS-ICS demonstration logo and CEPAA logo on company brochure and company stationery. In addition, they can get a SA8000 certificate for promotion. Europe takes the lead in implementing SA8000, followed by the United States. If it is exported to European and American markets, it is more urgent to adopt this standard. At present, the products of SA8000 certification enterprises are favored by large purchasing groups all over the world, which forces many enterprises to invest huge manpower, material resources and financial resources to apply for and maintain this certification system, which will undoubtedly greatly increase costs, especially in developing countries, where labor costs are their greatest comparative advantage, and social barriers will greatly weaken their comparative advantage in labor costs.
At present, some politicians, relevant media and social organizations in some developed countries, especially in the European Union, are constantly putting pressure on the government to instill social awareness in the public, demanding that exporters be inspected in the production process, such as employing child labor, and that the working conditions and welfare of workers be clearly defined. Some importers, especially famous brand clothing importers and well-known retail enterprises, have established social code of conduct and corresponding inspection system for suppliers in their companies for the above-mentioned political pressure and the consideration of maintaining corporate public image. The German Importers Association has formulated a code of social conduct. According to relevant regulations, German importers should be authorized by SA8000 (Social Responsibility 8000) Association to test the social behavior of their suppliers (exporters). This guideline has been adopted by French and Dutch importers' associations.
The core of social barriers is the issue of labor standards, and the debate about the relationship between labor standards and international trade in WTO has a long history. As early as the Uruguay Round negotiations, representatives of some European and American countries mentioned the issue of labor standards. Among them, the representative view is that due to the differences in wages, working hours, working environment and safety and health conditions among countries, countries with low labor standards have low production costs and have relative price advantages in international trade, which will inevitably lead to "social dumping" from developing countries to countries with high labor standards. They pointed out that while international trade is liberalized, unified international labor standards should be formulated in trade agreements and trade restrictions should be imposed on countries that do not meet the standards. Developed countries try to link humanitarian and social issues with international trade and bring them into WTO standards. At that time, they failed because of strong opposition from developing countries.
1997 since the introduction of SA8000 in August, it has developed very rapidly. Subsequently, European and American customers asked China's export enterprises to meet the requirements of SA8000. In recent years, the number of European and American enterprises that China's export enterprises should meet the requirements of SA8000 shows a rapid upward trend. However, it is difficult for many enterprises in China to meet the requirements of SA8000. By March 2004, 53 enterprises in China had passed the SA8000 certification. These enterprises are mainly distributed in cities with developed trade in the southeast coast.
At present, the biggest pressure on buyers in China is labor-intensive consumer goods manufacturing enterprises, such as clothing factories, toy factories, sporting goods factories, shoe factories, etc., and this trend is rapidly expanding to the whole consumer goods industry, even manufacturing and food industries. 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, it is mainly these multinational companies that are promoting the implementation of SA8000 in China.
Although the purpose of SA800 is good, it is very easy to be used by trade protectionists and become a favorable tool to restrict the export of labor-intensive products in developing countries today when tariffs and general non-tariffs are decreasing. In fact, trade protectionists have joined hands with human rights organizations to impose all-round restrictions on the exports of textiles, clothing, shoes, toys and leather products, small household appliances and other industries in developing countries in the name of SA8000. For example, some foreign human rights institutions put pressure on importers to import products produced by enterprises that have obtained SA8000 certification; In addition, some social groups demand that social anti-dumping duties be levied on enterprises that do not meet the requirements of labor standards. As a big producer of these products, China has a low level of economic development. Although the protection of workers has begun, it started late and has a big gap with developed countries. For most enterprises, once they are required to implement SA8000, their original competitive advantages will be greatly reduced or no longer exist.
Third, China's response to the construction of the export enterprise system
This international trend of environmental protection has a great influence on the selection of raw materials, the management of product manufacturing process, product specifications, pollution prevention in production process, the improvement of production technology, the sales and recycling of products, and the disposal of wastes.
Facing the pressure of various technical standards, regulations and market consumption tendency, foreign-related enterprises should not only passively abide by laws and regulations, but also incorporate the factors of international environmental protection norms into enterprise management, actively change to environmental resources and all-round green management mode, and plan clean technology, green products, green packaging and green subsidies in order to be invincible in the future international market. Green management is a concept combining macro and micro, and it is the main management mode in the era of ecological economy. The system consists of three subsystems: concept change and coordination monitoring system, production process monitoring system and green management system.