Trade: Obstacles to foreign trade
(People's Daily Online)
Updated: 2006-06-28 16:37
The period of the 11th five-year plan is very important for China. According
to Zhang Lichuan, a Director with the Statistical Department of General
Administration of Customs of China, to be a recognized trading power China must
commit to the search for solutions to emerging issues in foreign trade. She also
said that the Chinese government should focus on four major hurdles in the field
of foreign trade.
Firstly, China should deal with pressure from international markets that are
gradually becoming saturated. In 2005, the volume of Chinese exports ranked
third in the world, making up 7.3 per cent of the world's total volume, 3.4
percentage points up from 2000. In 2005, ranked among the world's top ten
countries in terms of export volume, China is growing much faster than the other
nine countries. The growth rate of Chinese exports exceeds the world's average
rate of 13 per cent. As a result, the growth of Chinese exports is increasingly
subjected to international markets.
Secondly, the cost of Chinese exports is increasing, partly because of the
higher cost of labor and environmental protection. Cheap labor is the foundation
of the Chinese economy. However, the worker shortage apparent in some areas of
China indicates that it is inappropriate to sacrifice workers' welfare for the
sake of low export prices and the Chinese government should change the
situation. In recent years, China has tightened restrictions on the export of
products that consume a lot of energy, create a lot of pollution or use a lot of
resources in their production. Limited resources and the environment have become
major obstacles to the growth of Chinese exports.
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