Research On Standardization Issues Of International Trade

After joining the WTO, the even complicated issue of trading protection has topped China's foreign trade agenda on how to achieve sustainable development. With the acceleration of the globalization, the influence of tariff barriers and traditional non-tariff barriers has been gradually weakened in the international trade. Meanwhile, world and regional trade organizations instead show more concern on the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), whose focus is Standard. The competitions among countries or enterprises, to a large sense, are manifested as technical standards competitions, especially when international standards have become a part of the game rules for the world trade and guidelines for products quality arbitration, more and more countries endeavor to gain more says in international standards events and embody their requirements and interests in the standards. As a big trading country, China must bear a clear understanding of the trading barriers from the Standards.The main body of this thesis is divided into six parts.The first part is introduction. It introduces the research background, purpose, relevant theories review, contents with its inspiring points, methods and remaining problems. This part sets the frame of this issue and lays down the background foundation for the research.The second part discloses the relationship between standardization and international trade with the presentation of the concepts and purpose of the standardization and tendency of international trade. Standard is considered as the main force of TBT, and has also become the highest level of international competition. The author proposes that Standard has both sides– positive and negative. The proper means should be applied to control its negative functions, however, never by weakening or eliminating Standard itself.The third part theoretically studies the developing law of technical standard in International Trade according to the product life cycle theory, analyses the growth path of technical standards, constructs Life Cycle Modes of technical standards and explores the basic rules of product standardization.The fourth part discusses attempt and progress of Standardization in Multilateral Trade System. Based on the international rules of standards, major standardization organizations in the world are introduced. There is also analysis on WTO's regulations on how the members should establish and carry out the standards, covering GATT1994, TBT and SPS agreements. It is believed that four rules, concerning Scientific Justification, Nondiscrimination, Harmonization and Transparency, should be followed when establishing and implementing the standards.The fifth part states the existing challenges that China's standardization faces. It explains China's present law and regulation system, standard system and current status of China's participating in international standards and simultaneously points out the shortages of Standardization. It expounds the problems relative to Standard in Chinese foreign trade, including limitations from importers and China's existing problems. China's technologies are mainly from foreign countries, 70% of which depends on outside. Meanwhile, China is also facing low technical standards, lacking creativities and the problems the like.The sixth part puts forward China's strategies and countermeasures of Standardization. Standard has become the focus of international trade. For a better and harmonious multilateral trading system, Standard is an important issue to be paid more attention to. In this part the author brings out the solutions to the problems of China's international standardization and explores the win-win standard-relative multilateral trading policies.What is new in this thesis is that it points out two edges of the standardization work. Our country should strengthen the work of standardization to establish a guarding mechanism against foreign trade risk. On the other hand, it analyses some contemporary cases with novelty. This thesis rehearses a large number of latest events into case analysis, including the lighter incident of Wenzhou Cigarette Accessories Business Association and the incident of Toy Inspection, which reflects all sorts of disadvantages in the standardization administration.This thesis has researched the ways to control the negative influence of the Standard in International Trade, analyzed the strong tie between standardization and international trade, pointed out the challenges faced by standardization and provided relative countermeasures.Hope this thesis will contribute to China's development under the context of WTO.