On 13 March 2024, the State Council issued the “Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-In.” The purpose of the document is to promote the production and application of advanced equipment, increase the proportion of advanced production capacity, introduce high-quality and durable consumer goods into people’s lives, facilitate the recycling of resources, and improve the quality and level of economic circulation.
The document proposes measures for promoting the renewal of equipment in various fields, including industry, construction and municipal infrastructure, transportation equipment and agricultural machinery, as well as education, culture, tourism, and medical fields. In addition, it suggests launching trade-in programs for consumer products in sectors such as automobiles, household appliances, and home decoration. Furthermore, the document emphasizes the need to strengthen resource recycling, by improving waste product recovery networks, supporting the circulation and trading of second-hand goods, promoting remanufacturing and graded utilization, and enhancing high-level recycling of resources.
Standards are regarded as important means to guide equipment renewal, and the document proposes the implementation of a “standard enhancement action”, which includes:
- Accelerating the improvement of energy consumption, emission, and technical standards. China shouldrevise and update national standards for energy consumption limits and equipment efficiency in key energy-consuming products based on international advanced levels, and enhancing energy-saving indicators and market access thresholds. China should also upgrade standards related to energy consumption for passenger cars and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, improve emission standards in key industries to optimize air and water pollutant emission control. Moreover, the carbon emission accounting standards for key industry enterprises should also be revised and improved, alongside the standards related to the upgrading and retirement of wind power generators and photovoltaic equipment and products.
- Strengthening the enhancement of product technical standards.Focusing on bulk consumer products such as automobiles, household appliances, home furnishings, consumer electronics, and civil drones, China should accelerate the upgrading of safety, health, performance, environmental protection, and testing standards. China should also improve the quality and safety standards systems for household appliances, promoting the use of household appliance safety usage years and energy-saving knowledge. Furthermore, the country should upgrade consumer product quality standards, formulate the catalog for the quality and safety supervision of consumer products, and strictly enforce quality and safety supervision. In addition, carbon labeling and other standard systems should be improved to fully leverage the role of standards in guiding the green transition, specifically green certification and other high-end certifications.
- Strengthening the supply of standards for resource recycling. China shouldimprove green design standards for materials and components that are easy to recycle, disassemble, and remanufacture. It should also revise standards for recycling of waste electrical and electronic products, introduce national standards for information erasure methods in the second-hand trading of electronic products such as mobile phones and tablets, guide second-hand electronic product dealers to establish information security management systems and information technology service management systems, and research and formulate standards for the usability grading of second-hand electronic products.
- Strengthening the connection between domestic and international standards in key areas. China shouldestablish and improve mechanisms for tracking the consistency of and transforming international standards. It should also conduct comparative analysis between Chinese standards and relevant international standards, transform a batch of advanced and applicable international standards, and continuously improve the conversion rate of international standards. China should also support domestic institutions to actively participate in the development and revision of international standards, and support key industry standards such as new energy vehicles to go global. In addition, the connection between domestic and international quality standards, inspection and quarantine, certification, and accreditation systems should be enhanced.
Against the backdrop of sluggish economic growth, by promoting equipment upgrades and trade-ins, the introduction of this policy clearly aims to stimulate a new wave of investment and consumption. Although the document proposes a large number of standardization tasks, aimed at providing support for equipment and product upgrades by developing new, higher technical standards, the completion of these tasks will require time; furthermore, whether these can truly lead this process remains to be seen.
Finally, the mention of “accelerating the upgrading of consumer product quality standards, formulating the catalog for quality and safety supervision of consumer products, and strictly enforcing quality and safety supervision” in the document is significant for overseas companies. Quality standards are often recommended standards, and the implementation of “quality and safety supervision” may enforce these recommended standards, potentially creating new technical trade barriers.
