Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

As an important part of China's international trade export products, the trade barriers encountered by mechanical and electrical products have been relatively serious.

"Last year, the CCPIT participated in the handling of 72 cases of trade remedy investigation of mechanical and electrical products, including 50 cases of anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures, 1 case of '232 investigation' carried forward, 1 case submitted to the court, 1 case in the court of trial, 19 cases of '337 investigation' in the United States, and 19 cases of industrial injury defense." The relevant head of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products said that last year, The number and amount of newly established trade remedy investigation cases decreased significantly. Among them, there were 14 new cases in the original trial, all of which were anti-dumping investigations or "double anti-dumping" investigations involving anti-dumping, a year-on-year decrease of 33.3%; The amount involved reached 1.73 billion US dollars, down about 50.7% year on year.

The above person in charge said that although the traditional trade remedy investigation cases had a downward trend last year, we should still be alert to the possibility of case callback after the epidemic ended and the supply and demand balance. According to the situation of the countries that initiated the investigation, the largest number was India, with 6 cases, followed by Argentina. Because of the international conductivity of trade frictions, when a country initiates a trade remedy investigation on a product, the product will be transferred to the market if it cannot be exported, resulting in an increase in the number of products exported to other countries, which in turn leads to the country launching a trade remedy investigation on the product.

Taking optical fiber and cable products as an example, the EU launched the "double anti" investigation of optical fiber and cable in 2020; India launched the investigation of safeguard measures for single-mode optical fiber in 2019 and the anti-dumping investigation of single-mode optical fiber in 2022; As an independent investigating country after Brexit, the UK also launched the "double anti" investigation of single-mode optical fiber and cable in 2022.

"In the future, with the growth of the export of mechanical and electrical products in international trade, emerging markets will become the initiator of trade remedy investigations or the destination countries of anti-circumvention investigations in Europe and the United States." According to the person in charge, from the range of products involved, the industries involved are relatively scattered, including aluminum hubs, vacuum cleaners, electric kettle, photovoltaic modules, optical cables, single-mode optical fibers, industrial laser cutting machines, printed circuit boards, etc. From the perspective of product categories, high-tech fields such as 5G and artificial intelligence, and new energy fields such as photovoltaic and new energy vehicles have become and will continue to become the areas of frequent cases.

The person in charge said that in recent years, while countries used traditional trade investigation methods to suppress Chinese enterprises, they also restricted the normal economic and trade activities of Chinese enterprises by means of international trade export control, forced labor, new anti-subsidy rules, industrial policies and other means, with more extensive, diverse and hidden means.

In June 2022, the so-called "Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act" in the United States was officially implemented, which had a great impact on the export of relevant industries and enterprises in China. According to the statistics of the United States Customs, from August to November 2022, the United States Customs seized 2171 batches of goods, involving an import amount of 684 million US dollars, mainly for the downstream products of cotton, tomato and silicon. According to the news, the scope of U.S. customs enforcement is expanding to the downstream products of PVC and aluminum ingots, which will bring many uncertain risks to the future export of international trade enterprises.

In addition, export control has also become an important means for the United States to crack down on the export of Chinese high-tech enterprises. The Sino-US trade dispute continues, and the United States has listed many well-known Chinese enterprises in the "entity list". In October 2022, when the United States added 31 Chinese enterprises/institutions to the "unverified list", it also announced that if an enterprise was added to the "unverified list", the government of the country where the enterprise is located continued to refuse to arrange the United States Department of Commerce to conduct the end-use audit of the enterprise, and the United States Department of Commerce will add the enterprise to the "entity list".

In response, the Ministry of Commerce of China said that the US approach not only affected the legitimate and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, but also damaged the legitimate commercial interests of American export enterprises. The United States should immediately stop the wrong practices and give fair treatment to enterprises from all countries, including Chinese enterprises. China calls on all parties to strengthen cooperation and jointly build a safe and stable, smooth and efficient, open and inclusive, and mutually beneficial global industrial chain supply chain system.

On the sixth day of the New Year of the Rabbit, at the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Geneva, Li Chenggang, the Permanent Representative of China to the WTO, said in his speech, "These disturbing acts of the United States clearly depict the image of the United States, namely, the implementer of unilateral hegemonic acts, the destroyer of the multilateral trading system and the disrupter of the global industrial chain supply chain".

"If the traditional trade remedy investigation harms the export interests of some enterprises in some industries, the export control harms the overall interests of strategic industries such as high-tech, which not only affects the export and industrial development of international trade enterprises, but also relates to economic development and national interests." The above-mentioned person in charge said that in order to deal with trade frictions, the Chamber of Commerce of Machinery and Electronics, relying on the "four-body linkage" mechanism, closely grasped the characteristics of the case, Do a good job in organizing each case; Pay attention to the new changes and trends of international economic and trade rules, and provide enterprises with advance warning and professional legal guidance; Build a comprehensive legal service platform for the Chamber of Commerce for Machinery and Electronics, and improve its comprehensive legal service capacity.

China's mechanical and electrical product-related enterprises have continuously improved their ability to respond to trade remedy investigations. Many enterprises have established or are establishing internal compliance systems that conform to international practices and their own development. Last year, BSI (British Standards Institute) issued ISO 37301 International Standard Certificate for Compliance Management to Haier, Midea and other enterprises. "Standardized compliance practices are like a globally effective visa, which is conducive to reducing access barriers and doubts." Chen Min, the global legal director of Midea Group, said that Midea will also continue to build a compliance culture, continue to improve and improve the compliance management system.