Asia-Pacific

China's certification system protectionist: EU envoy

By Zhang Haizhou and Cai Xiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-18 07:44

Industry experts refute charge, say label also used for domestic goods

BEIJING: A top envoy of the European Union on Wednesday labeled as "protectionist" a compulsory certification system that is required before goods enter the Chinese market.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital, the EU's Ambassador to China, Serge Abou said the EU would like to see more products by small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe entering the Chinese market, but that the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) mark was "discouraging" them from doing so.

Abou said companies that want to export products to China face several years' delay before they obtain the certification.

"This system is more and more complex and it is the main obstacle to imports in China and I don't hesitate to qualify it as protectionist," Abou said.

"We are more and more worried because the mood seems to be not to simplify these procedures which are very cumbersome but to make them even more complex."

The CCC mark is a compulsory safety standard for many products, ranging from toys and machinery to electrical equipment, that are sold in the Chinese market. It came into effect on May 1, 2002.

On its part, Chinese industry experts refuted the criticism, saying the CCC applied to both imported and domestically-made products, and urged the EU to open up its market further to Chinese enterprises.

Industries in Europe have experienced problems with the CCC system and have been suffering from serious financial and administrative costs, according to Orgalime, a Brussels-based European federation representing the interests of the European engineering industry.

As the largest industrial branch in the EU, engineering accounts for some 27 percent of the EU's manufactured output and a third of manufactured exports.

Zhang Tong, an EU studies expert at the Beijing-based China University of Political Science and Law, said the CCC was not protectionist.

Since it applied to both domestically manufactured and imported goods, the CCC was in accordance with WTO requirements, Zhang said.

"The quality of EU products is generally higher than that of China. So the CCC is actually restrictive for domestic products," Zhang said. "All countries have the right to set such standards to better protect consumers."

She said Abou was using the CCC as "an excuse". In fact, Zhang added, the EU has stricter regulations for imported products, such as toys from China.

Guan Chengyuan, a former Chinese ambassador to the 27-nation bloc, also said the EU itself should be more open to China. Even though the EU was China's biggest trade partner, Guan said Chinese firms found it "hard to adapt" to its labor and welfare policies.

"We hope the EU market can be more open and create a better investment environment for China," Guan said.

Bilateral trade between China and EU touched $360 billion in 2009. Yet, only 1.3 percent of the EU's investments globally were in China, and only 0.5 percent of foreign investments the 27-nation bloc received was from China, Abou said.

Abou said a team led by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso would visit Beijing on April 29.

The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht would accompany Barroso to China, he said.

Abou said he hoped a EU-China Energy Center, located in Beijing's Tsinghua University, would be launched during the visit. Barroso is also expected to meet Premier Wen Jiabao when in China next month.