Haibao News:

Today is World Metrology Day, observed on May 20. As we know, quality infrastructure such as measurement standards, certification, accreditation, inspection, and testing are an important support for facilitating international trade. What efforts have been made by the market regulators to strengthen the alignment of standards and rules and promote the integration of domestic and foreign trade? And what achievements have been made? What are the ideas and measures for promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade in the future? Thank you.

Pu Chun: 

Today is May 20, a special day for love in China. It is also World Metrology Day. Measurement standards, certification, accreditation, inspection, and testing are not only an essential infrastructure for the domestic market system but also important content of international economic and trade rules. Market regulators have played an active role in providing technical support for quality infrastructure and strengthened the alignment of market rules and standards, thus giving strong impetus to the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade.

First, we have worked to align market regulation rules with international economic and trade rules. Under the framework of the BRI and the RCEP, we have promoted coordination of standards and cooperation on mutual recognition of conformity assessment results, boosted the development of foreign trade, strengthened research on technical trade measures and response to them, and reviewed foreign technical trade measures that affect Chinese enterprises in export industries, which has given a significant boost to safeguarding the lawful and reasonable rights of Chinese enterprises.

Second, we have actively promoted to align standards certification. In terms of standardization, the consistency of major consumer goods in nine key areas, including household appliances and consumer electronics, with international standards rose to 96.15% from 81.45% in 2016. The average international standard conversion rate across all industries has reached 75%, and the international standard conversion rate in many important industries, including equipment manufacturing, important consumer goods, and next-generation information technology, has exceeded 90%. All of these have boosted the integration of domestic and foreign trade. In terms of certification and accreditation, China has signed 127 documents on cooperation and mutual recognition arrangements with more than 30 countries and economies and joined 21 certification and accreditation international organizations, greatly facilitating the economic and trade development between China and her trading partners. We have simplified the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) procedures for domestic sales of export-oriented commodities, where the CCC certificate will be issued in seven working days if application documents are complete.

Third, we have boosted the alignment of domestic and foreign trade products with the same production lines, standards, and quality. We have stepped up efforts in this regard by guiding enterprises to produce products that meet the requirements of specific target markets abroad and can be sold at home as well based on the same standards and quality requirements. At present, the application scope of the alignment has been extended to cover general consumer goods and industrial products. There are nearly 10,000 products of this kind from around 3,000 enterprises on the public information service platform of the alignment.

Next, the State Administration for Market Regulation will continue to play its functional role in promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. First, we will enhance the alignment of standards and rules, continue to strengthen the design, implementation and promotion of national standards in key and hot areas of trade, keep improving the consistency of domestic and international standards, and give better play to the important role of standardization in promoting trade growth and facilitating trade. Second, we will continue to deepen international cooperation of mutual recognition of quality certification, carry out bilateral and multilateral cooperation of mutual recognition in key areas, and expand the participation of domestic enterprises and relevant institutions to get more benefits from international cooperation of mutual recognition. We will step up efforts to promote compulsory certification of products for the target market of China's exports, facilitating the export of Chinese products. Third, we will accelerate the alignment of domestic and foreign trade products with the same production lines, standards, and quality, enhance policy guidance for the alignment, work to improve the quality, and ensure service guarantee. We will support enterprises to meet the requirements of the alignment by means of self-declaration or third-party evaluation. Thank you.