Impacts Of TBT On China's Industrial Competitiveness

WTO, as a global multilateral trade system, whose purpose is promoting free trade in the world, and eliminating the impact made by member's protectionism. So far now, the mainstream of multilateral trade negotiation is to decrease the tariff sharply and remove non-tariff barriers gradually, in the meantime, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement and Agreement on Application of sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) have been stipulated as the basis and criterion which WTO member should comply with.Technical barrier system in the form of technical regulation, standard and product quality and management system certification which fabricated and carried out by western developed countries has actually undermined our foreign trade competitiveness and products competitiveness. The paper has normative and empirical study in the perspective of industrial competitiveness on TBT's impacts both in a short term and in the long run.In the normative study, the paper tries to establish a complete framework on which empirical study based. On the basis of TBT agreement and SPS agreement, the paper has outlined features, functions of technical barrier, illustrated how technical barriers (including standard) affect on one particular industry competitiveness.On the part of empirical study, the paper has selected four industries, i.e. agricultural products and food, textile and garment, chemical products and ?mechanical and transport equipment, with an aim to accounting for TBT's impact on industrial competitiveness. The conclusions show that in the short term, the impact on industry competitiveness by technical barrier to trade has a transit mechanism through economic and trade effects, i.e. change of trade flow, trade advantages, production cost and price. In the long run, the paper has constructed one econometric model to quantify the influence by using panel data (1995—2004), the conclusion is that the impacts of TBT on the competitiveness of four industries are not the same because of the different industrial features, and economical function of TBT. Regardless of other facts' influence, (i) technical barrier affected agricultural products and food, textile and garment, chemical products negatively, the said three industries added value decreased 10.403, 21.571 and 25.748 billion rmb yuan respectively while every 1% technical barrier has been increased. (ii) technical barrier affected transport equipment positively, its industry added value increased 18.754 billion rmb yuan while every 1% technical barrier has been increased.In the end, Technical barrier to trade is not equal to trade protection, it is a thruster for Chinese enterprise to adjust industry structure, improve products quality and upgrade competitiveness. Government trade policy and industrial technical policy should not be the same as result of dynamic TBT and different impacts on some particular industry. How to unite government, industry union and enterprise, research institute and university in an effort to overcome technical barrier and to improve product quality is the key competitiveness of products in China in the coming years. To learn and use some experience developed countries set up reasonable technical barrier in the course of economic development and to develop our know-how, high-tech with intellectual property right, with an aim to boosting our economy in good condition, promoting enterprise's competitiveness and driving industry structure adjustment in China.