Application Of The Rules Of Origin In Anti-dumping And Anti-circumvention

With the development of the globalization, regional economic integration is speeding. More and more products are produced in more than one country, which made the nationality of one product vague. Uruguay Round negotiations had reached the Agreement on the rules of origin. But it did not complete the task of unification of rules of origin in different countries. The western countries made use of this chance to make new laws on their rules of origin, or to make them more flexible. And at the same time, authorities in the western countries took advantage of their discretionary to use the rules of origin directly or indirectly as obstacle in free trade course, which blocked the normal development of free trade seriously on one hand. On the other hand, the rules of origin in our country has started late no matter in theories or practise. It is this situation that worsens the development of exporting in our country. The function of the rules of origin has no been exerted fully. So it is urgent affair to make use of the advantages in the trasitional period to perfect the rules of origin in our country. In this essay, I explained my understanding in four chapters.The whole essay was divided into four chapters. And there were more than 20,000 words in this essay. It was about the system and content of the rules of origin, the influence of the rules of origin on the anti-dumping system and the anti-circumvention system. And also the weakness of and the advise to perfect the rules of origin in our country were related in details.The first chapter was divided into two sections. As the summary of the rules of origin, the first section introduced things as follow:firstly, it gaved the meanings of the origin of product and the rules of origin, and the provisions in the Kyoto Protocol. Secondly, it gaved the divisions of the rules of origin. The rules of origin could be divided into many sorts, such as the rules of origin on export and the rules of origin on import, the Non-Preferential Rules of Origin and the Preferential Rules of Origin, and so on. Thirdly, it introduced the content of the rules of origin. In this part, I focused on the Criteria of Origin, which are the Wholly-obtained Criterion and the Substantial Transformation Criterion. In the second section, the functions of the rules of origin in the international trade was explained. The functions could be said in two aspects. The first is the positive role in the General System of Preference, in attracting investment and in boosting the development of hi-tech industry. The second is its negative role in blocking free trade, in impeding the optimization of the sources.The second chapter was divided into three sections. The first section was about the dumping and anti-dumping. Dumping was related to the price discrimination between different countries and the sales below cost. Dumping was harm to the exporting country, the importing country and even a third country. So most countries in the world have made laws to regulate dumpings. That is the anti-dumping laws. China has been the most-seriously influnced vicitim for all these years. The role of the rules of origin in anti-dumping has not been payed enough attention. Its functions has not been exterted fully in China. In the second section, the influnce of the rules of origin on the entity was showed. It was explained in four aspects. The first was the identification of the dumping. The second was the identification of the injure. The existance of dumping can not lead to anti-dumping measure directly. It can be this only when the injure was serious enough. The third was the dentification of the minimun dumping, which was divisive in deciding the anti-dumping measures. The fourth was the influence of the cumulating evaluation of dumping. The cumulating evaluation enriched the scope of the application of the anti-dumping measures, and made the existance of dumping more possible. The third section was about the influence of the rules of origin on the rountings of the anti-dumping laws. We anlyzed the regulations in Amerca and the EU, which were the leaders. There were two systems to apply the rules of origin in the Amercan Custom and the department of commerce. And the EU have made different laws to regulate products coming from different countries. It depends on the interest of whole area to decide which laws should be applied.The third chapter was divided into three sections, too. In the first section, the general introduction of circumvention and anti-circumvention was related. When anti-dumping measures were taken to one product, and anti-dumping duty was imposed, the related importers and exporters may took measures to avoid the duty droven by the profit. That was called anti-dumping measures. At present, almost all countries have enacted laws to regulate the circumvention measures. In pracise, the measures uaually include the assembly in the importing country, the assembly in a third country and so on. Anti-circumvention regulations were started from the EU and America, so the regulations in the two areas are more advaned. In the second section, we explained the application of anti-circumvention regulations in America, and in the third section, we explained the application of anti-circumvention regulations in the EU.The fourth chapter was divided into three sections. The first section gave the course of the development of rules of origin in China. The second section analyzed the factors which made China the first vicitim of anti-dumping measures. First, the criteria of indentifying Chinese products were too low and out of date. Second, the special criteria of indentifying special products have not been made. Third, the WTO Agreement on the rules of origin was weak. So in the third section, I made some proposals to perfect the rules of origin in China. First, we should make higher-standarded criteria to identify whether the product is Chinese or not. So products labelled "Made in China" will be less. Second, we should make special criteria to identify some special products, such as the quota products, government procurement products, high-technology products and some other sensitive products. Third, we should perfect our existing rules of origin to support Chinese enterprises and to avoid circumvention measures. Fourth, we should take measures to make Chinese rules of origin in service area more quickly.With the development of free trade, the role of the rules of origin will become weak. But as long as the rules of origin exists, we should make use of them. So I think we should take advantage of the special regulations in the transitional period to perfect Chinese rules of origin which should depend on the existing Chinese national conditions, in order to protect Chinese industry.