Report points to trade barriers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-04-01 08:46

The ministry's 182-page annual foreign market access report devoted 22 pages to obstacles faced by Chinese firms in the United States, followed by 18 pages for the European Union and 14 for Japan.

It is the third report of its kind to be issued by the ministry's Bureau of Fair Trade for Imports & Exports, summing up Chinese firms' trade and investment difficulties in the nation's 22 major trading partners.

The report highlights the ministry's concerns on foreign countries' trade barriers against Chinese firms, said Wang Shichun, head of the bureau.

The problems identified in the report will be discussed in bilateral or multilateral government negotiations in a bid to overcome them.

Trade remedies, technical standards, quarantine and quality inspection, intellectual property rights, customs procedural requirements, environmental protection and labour standards were among the measures used against Chinese exports and investment.

While the first edition of the report highlighted 250 trade and investment problems, this edition pointed to 450, Wang remarked.

The trade and investment barriers faced by Chinese companies are in line with the fast development of the country's foreign trade and investment, Wang pointed out.

A total of 16 economies initiated 57 anti-dumping and safeguard investigations against Chinese goods last year. These cases involved goods worth US$1.26 billion, the single largest amount in the world.

The report says US legislation contains many discriminatory provisions against Chinese products.

Many unfair practices that exist in the anti-dumping investigations in economies such as the United States and the European Union are also barriers to China's exports, Wang said.

The United States filed six anti-dumping investigations and 12 product-specific safeguard investigations involving Chinese exports last year.

The European Union filed nine cases against Chinese products last year, almost one-third of the total number of cases it filed. The European Union only filed three cases involving Chinese companies in 2003.

Besides China, other World Trade Organization members including the United States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Canada have also started compiling such reports.

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