(III) Analysis of the Green Barriers Affecting the Export of China's Agricultural Products to the United States

Of the export enterprises that are subject to green barriers in China, 40% are restricted by the EU, and 27% are restricted by the United States. If viewed from the country alone, there is no doubt that the United States has become China's largest exporter with green barriers. The US's green barrier system Wide coverage, complex system of laws and regulations, rigorous enforcement system, and unilateralism. The United States has particularly strict import inspections for food, medicines, cosmetics and plants and animals, complete institutions, and a large number of professionals with strict standards, which constitutes a major obstacle to importing countries, especially China. The United States emphatically advocates trade liberalization on the surface, but the United States is the world’s largest agricultural country and has many surplus agricultural products. In order to throw surplus domestic agricultural products into the international market and prevent foreign low-priced agricultural products from impacting the domestic market, the United States has set a very strict green trade barrier system for agricultural products, which has a strong protectionism. The green US trade barriers faced by China's agricultural exports are mainly reflected in strict inspection, quarantine, certification, standard methods and measures, and are roughly divided into four situations:

1. Food safety, animal and plant inspection and quarantine regulations

The United States has established a complete system of laws, regulations, and standards that guarantee food safety. These laws not only regulate the production and processing of domestic agricultural products, but also block out foreign products that do not meet the standards. For example, the United States has the "Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act," "Federal Meat Inspection Law," "Egg Product Inspection Law," "Poultry Food Inspection Law," "Food Quality Protection Law," and "Public Health Services Act." The “Infant Drug Law,” “Tea Import Law,” and “Baby Food Law” constitute a stringent food safety laws and regulations network and provide detailed stipulations on the certification, packaging, labeling, inspection, and inspection methods of imported agricultural products. . It is understood that due to various reasons, the average number of imported goods held by the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) per month is as high as 3,500. In 1989, the FDA automatically detained the presence of staphylococcal enterotoxin in Chinese mushroom cans. Chinese canned mushrooms. In addition to market sampling, the management of imported food is mainly conducted at port inspections. Those that do not meet the requirements will be detained, and then processed by means of improvement, return or destruction. In China, since 1987, about 25% of the batches of foods detained by US Customs each year are due to the fact that the labels do not meet the requirements of the “US Food Labeling Law,” and about 8% of the batches are due to the use of non-FDA approved products. Additives.

In 1973, the US FDA for the first time applied "Hazard Analysis and Critical Point Control" (HPCCP) to the processing of canned food to ensure the safety and health of the whole food chain process from the raw materials to the final consumption. The “Safety and Sanitation Procedures for Processing and Importing Aquatic Products” promulgated by the US FDA in 1995 stipulates that where the United States exports aquatic products, its production and processing companies must implement the HACCP system and register with the U.S. official agencies. The United States introduced the /KHACCP management system in food processing in December 1997. It prohibits the import of aquatic products and meat products that do not carry out HACCP. It requires that all aquatic products and meat product companies that export to the United States must obtain HACCP certification. In January 2001, the United States FDA X. promulgated new regulations to implement HACCPP management on fruit and vegetable juice products. This is another product that is mandatory for HACCP management in the United States after aquatic products, meat, and dairy products. The United States is the largest fruit juice export market in China. The processing volume of concentrated juice in China is about 200,000 tons per year, and exports account for 85% of the total production volume. This new regulation issued by the FDA will inevitably affect the export of concentrated juice from the United States to the United States. At present, the United States has applied this principle to products such as foods, medicines, cosmetics, and detergents.

In May 2002, the US FDA announced that the limit of detection for honey chloramphenicol residues in China was 0.31 μg/kg, and it may increase to 0.1 μg/kg. Affected by this, China's honey exports to the United States in 2002 was about 7614 tons, a decrease of 52.35% from the previous year, and the export value was approximately US$8.09 million, a drop of 43.56%.

2, quality standards, food labels and packaging requirements

At present, the United States is still constantly upgrading its quality inspection standards and testing projects are also increasing. The United States is one of the countries with the most stringent food labeling requirements in the world. There are as many as 22 food labels, which are revised and supplemented year by year. The U.S. requires that all packaged foods should have food labels, and that fortified foods must also have nutrition labels, and they must indicate the content of at least 14 nutrients. It is estimated that this alone will cause US processing companies to spend an additional US$1.05 billion each year. It is clear that China and Other developing countries cannot afford this cost.

A few days ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture made regulations to implement a labeling system for organic foods. Any food with an organic level of 95% or more can be affixed with a green round mark with the words "organic" and "United States Department of Agriculture" in English. Foods with an organic level of between 70% and 95% cannot be labeled, but they can be marked on the label “containing organic ingredients”. Whether food is eligible to be labeled with organic foods requires certification by a specialized agency approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new labeling system is welcomed by American agriculture and food retailers. However, for other agricultural exporters, it may be a potential green barrier. According to reports, some European exporters, such as Denmark, have responded to this and believe that some small farms in the country will not be able to meet the extremely stringent new standards for organic food in the United States, and their exports of organic agricultural products to the United States may be severely damaged.

In September 1997, the U.S. Department of Agriculture used untreated wooden packaging for Chinese goods to bring Asian anoplophos pens into the United States, requesting the implementation of wooden packaging for Chinese imports imported from China from December 17, 1997. Special quarantine requirements have greatly increased the cost of Chinese exporters. These “green packaging” laws and regulations, while beneficial to environmental protection, provide the possibility for developed countries to create “green barriers”. They excuse other countries, especially the packaging of products from developing countries that do not meet their requirements and restrict imports. This has caused constant trade frictions.

3, environmental protection and animal welfare requirements

This part of the green barrier mainly includes international and regional environmental protection conventions, national environmental protection regulations and standards, inspection and quarantine requirements, green packaging and labeling requirements, IS014000 environmental management system and environmental labeling and other voluntary measures, production and processing methods and environment. Internalization requirements for costs, etc. The United States began implementing the environmental labeling system in 1988. 36 states have joint legislation to use green signs on plastic products, bags, and containers, and also use the “recycling mark” to indicate that it can be recycled and reused.

According to the FDA regulations, from June 1, 1995, all fish and products exported to the United States must be affixed with labels from uncontaminated waters that have been certified by the United States. At present, developed countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway, Sweden, France, Finland, and Australia have all established environmental labeling systems and tend to coordinate and recognize each other. It is like an invisible layer of barriers, which has made it difficult for developing country products to enter the markets of developed countries, and even suffered a great impact.

In 1995, the U.S. FDA announced the implementation of "automatic detention" of Chinese shrimp products. This was caused by the fact that Chinese fishing vessels did not install turtle escape devices and endangered the survival of sea turtles. As a result, China's frozen lobster exports decreased from $12.039 million in 1995. It was 238,000 U.S. dollars in 1997.

4, green subsidies

In order to protect the environment and resources, it is necessary to calculate the cost of the environment and resources within the cost and internalize the environmental and resource costs. Developed countries such as the United States have shifted industries that pollute the environment seriously to developing countries to reduce environmental costs. The environmental costs of developing countries have therefore increased. Even more serious is that most companies in developing countries are unable to bear the costs of environmental pollution. The government sometimes gives them certain environmental subsidies. However, developed countries believe that the "subsidies" of developing countries violate WTO regulations. This is limited by the import of its products. For example, in the United States, on the basis of environmental protection subsidies, counterfeit lawsuits were filed against synthetic rubber shoes from Brazil and frozen pork from Canada. From a worldwide perspective, this kind of “green subsidies” barrier has an increasing trend. In 1999 and 2000, the United States conducted an anti-dumping investigation on Chinese apple juice. When this measure was difficult to effectively restrict imports, it now proposes 108 kinds of pesticide residue limit requirements.

V. Main countermeasures for China's response to green barriers

Measures for Chinese agricultural products to break through the green barriers in the United States should be explained from two different levels of government and business.

(I) Government Action

1. Establish and improve the early warning mechanism for green barriers to export of agricultural products as soon as possible

Both major developed countries and some developing countries attach great importance to tracking reports and research on green barrier measures of their trading partners, and some have established mature warning mechanisms and won the initiative to respond to green barriers. The relevant government departments of China can learn from the mature practices of other countries, strengthen the construction of notification and consultation websites, establish foreign countries, especially the United States green barrier information center and database, timely issue warning information, provide information consulting services for enterprises, and provide timely access to Chinese foreign-related export enterprises. Information on green barriers, technical regulations of major trading countries, development trends of international technology trade measures, etc. enabled them to take preventive measures and take active measures to break through the technical barriers in the United States.

2. Construct China's international trade green barrier system

China should establish its own green barrier system with reference to international norms. In doing so, on the one hand, it can protect the nation’s ecological and economic security, protect the lives or health of humans and animals and plants, protect the environment, and reasonably and effectively protect the domestic weak industries; The aspect can prompt Chinese domestic enterprises to strengthen their understanding of green barriers and improve production to meet various advanced standards. More importantly, by building China's own green barrier system to prevent certain developed countries (including the United States) from using processing trade and investment to transfer high-pollution industries to China, so that foreign countries are less likely to retaliate and reduce discriminatory technical regulations.

3. Establish and improve the quality and safety guarantee system for agricultural products

Including agricultural product quality and safety standards system, supervision inspection and inspection system, demonstration system, law enforcement system, production technology promotion system and market information system; establish and improve agricultural product export support and service system; for livestock, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, flowers, tobacco, etc. The state of hygiene and safety of export products is subject to a comprehensive investigation. In accordance with China's actual conditions, new health safety standards are formulated and international standards for export companies are issued.

4. Implement a green certification system that complies with international standards

Certification is the conformity assessment procedure that proves that the products and management systems produced by the company meet certain standards and regulations. Now through the approval of product certification laboratory to obtain IS09000 series of quality standards, IS014000 environmental management system audit registration, has become the product into the international market "pass." The Chinese government should widely publicize and vigorously promote the certification of ISO series of international standards, and actively guide enterprises to carry out relevant certification.

(II) Business Conduct

1. Energetically develop characteristic agricultural products and organic agricultural products, and fully implement the green strategy

Rely on China's unique resources and advantageous resources, produce agricultural products that are rarely produced or not produced at all, and seize the product of “I have no people, and people have me” to make a big fuss. It will be of great benefit to China’s agricultural exports to break through green barriers. . The geographic location of each country is not the same, and the geographical environment or production conditions such as soil, atmosphere, and waters are not exactly the same. The agricultural products produced have certain characteristics, such as the navel oranges in the United States, the soybeans in northeastern China, and so on. Taking Chinese herbal medicine as an example, the United States does not produce Chinese herbal medicines, and the market demand for Chinese herbal medicines is relatively strong. Generally, it will not impose harsh technical measures on such agricultural products.

2. Improve export agricultural product packaging and improve the export competitiveness of China's agricultural products

The current packaging materials for agricultural products exported from China are backward, difficult to handle, low in recyclability, and serious environmental pollution in importing countries. Related industries and enterprises in China should strengthen export goods packaging materials and packaging containers.