21/04/2020
The Administrative Measures for Mandatory National Standards of China (herein after referred to as the Measures) has been released in January 2020 and will be implemented on June 1, 2020. As a supporting document of the Standardization Law, it has significant impact on market access and the participation of overseas stakeholders in the development of China’s mandatory national standards.
The release of the Measures indicates China’s positive attitude towards improving the administration of mandatory national standards. From matters in this document, such as the adoption of international standards, timely external notifications, the transition from old to new standards, and the participation of foreign-invested enterprises in the development of mandatory national standards, we can see that the Chinese government values feedback from overseas stakeholders. These improvements facilitate the standardization work in China to go international, and reduce unnecessary technical trade barriers. At the same time, however, we also notice some problems in wording and practice, which are stated below.
- The Openness and Transparency of Procedures
The Measures states that “social groups, enterprises and institutions, as well as citizens, may put forward proposals for the project initiation of mandatory national standards”. But it is the administrative department of standardization under the State Council who study and decide with the relevant administrative department under the State Council which one is necessary for establishing a project. Taking into account the huge impact of mandatory national standards on enterprises and industries, extensive consultation during project initiation helps to preserve the fairness and openness of the project. In addition, processing of the collected comments should also adhere to the principle of fairness and transparency.
2. Fair Participation of Foreign-invested Enterprises
The Measures specifies that the fair participation of foreign-invested enterprises in the development of mandatory national standards should be guaranteed. In reality, however, there are many cases in which these companies are excluded due to various reasons. So a policy or regulation should be developed to ensure the implementation of this provision.
3. Transition Period
In the Measures, great attention has been attached to the issue of transition period in the development of mandatory national standards. Nevertheless, the Measures fails to make it clear how to deal with the old and new standards during the transition period, which may lead to many problems in the implementation phase.
4. WTO Notification
According to the regulations of the WTO, all mandatory national standards need to be notified to member states in accordance with WTO procedures, but the Measures states that only mandatory national standards with “significant impact” are to be notified, which fails to comply with the WTO rules. And there is no way to measure “significant impact”.
5. Adoption of Standards
As the Measures specifies, “The adoption of international standards should conform to national conditions”. But what or how international standards are to be converted is not explained explicitly. And new trade barriers will be created if international standards are to be adopted with modification, which in turn affects fair competition. Another problem that arises when adopting international standards is the provision that states “The full text of mandatory national standards is disclosed to the public for free”. In general, international standards have clear policies for copyright protection. If mandatory national standards adopted from international standards were disclosed for free, then encouraging the adoption of international standards would go against the copyright of international standards.
6. Implementation
Any regulation will meet with many specific problems when being implemented. The method of issuing “detailed explanations for standards” provided in the Measures fails to respond to the problems of enterprises and industries in time. Therefore, specific measures should be developed to explain standards for enterprises and clarify any issues in the application of standards. Then there will always be a way to follow for the drafting departments and relevant parties.
All in all, the development and release of the Measures are a huge leap in the standardization reform, representing China’s efforts on moving towards international rules. Still, a large number of problems remain to be solved but we are expecting future policies and regulations to deal with those problems.
