According to the WTO’s latest statistics, in January, the WTO members informed the WTO of 248 new technical trade measures, 175 technical barriers to trade, 73 animal and plant health inspection and quarantine measures. Besides, 83 items of them, accounting for 33.5% of the total, were informed by the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea and other countries who have a close trade connection with China. Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis, countries are grappling with technical trade measures to raise the threshold for foreign products entering the country so as to protect their business interests. Since June last year, the number of technical trade measures informed by WTO members continued to surge, which in June and in November went up by 74.1% and 45.1%. In January this year, the technical trade measures increased by 38.5%, of which technical barriers to trade increased by 63.6%. CUBE (Capital University of Business And Economics)’s professor Jia Jinsi said that, out of the protection of domestic industries under the crisis, countries will accelerate the development of new standards. “The war of technical standards” will be the main friction that China has to face in the respect of its foreign trade. |