Standards' Positive And Negative Effects On China's Trade And Economic Development

Faster economic growth and expansion of imports and exports in China will depend on many factors, including efficient modern standard systems and removal of technical barriers to trade. This paper reviews the double role of standards on trade and economy in our country and suggests areas of priority reform from a trade policy perspective in an increasingly important area of public policy and economic development. There are six chapters in this paper:Chapter 1 introduces the special subject of standards for trade negotiators and policy makers.Chapter 2 dissertates the benefits of trade for China. China has realized the annual growth rate of about 7% in the last decade, in which trade and open policy have played an important role. However, there are still all kinds of barriers to trade in China at present, in which we focus on standards. That's why we study the subject of standards.Chapter 3 analyzes standards' positive and negative effects on China's trade and economic development. In this paper, standards are discussed in a wide scope, including both voluntary standards and mandatory standards (regulations). We study the benefits and costs associated with standards in the world trade, as the reference of how they impact China's trade and economic development.Chapter 4 reviews the history of dispute settlements at the WTO in the standard area, as the reference of what we should do with standards as trade barriers both in China and faced by China in the last two chapters.Chapter 5 summarizes that we should either borrow international standards or adopt those general ones accepted by our major trade partners. However, as a developing country, China has a lot of disadvantages in the standards area and faces more and more issues as her trade and economy develop.Chapter 6 draws several conclusions about what our government and companies can do with standard issues, considering Chinese specific situations.