General

On September 5, I learned from the 2022 Conformity Assessment Service Trade Facilitation Forum hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the National Certification and Accreditation Administration Commission that my country has signed 15 multilateral mutual recognition agreements and 127 foreign countries in terms of mutual recognition of conformity assessment results. Bilateral cooperation and mutual recognition documents, and have established bilateral cooperative relations with more than 30 countries and regions along the "Belt and Road", and the scope of mutual recognition covers more than 95% of the global economy.

Conformity assessment is the systematic examination and verification of the extent to which a product, process or service meets specified requirements. Internationally called conformity assessment activities generally include: enterprise's self-declaration, second- or third-party inspection, inspection, verification and other evaluation activities or certification, registration activities and their combinations. This also includes the accreditation activities carried out to regulate the behavior of organizations that provide evaluation services for enterprises.

Chen Jianan, vice president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that in recent years, affected by the global new crown epidemic and changes in the international political situation, the phenomenon of anti-globalization has intensified.

Import and export data show that the annual number of notifications of technical trade measures increased from 1,259 in 2002 to 5,478 in 2020. According to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 80% of global trade and investment are affected by technical trade measures, of which two-thirds involve conformity assessment procedures.

As the largest country in trade in goods, the largest country in manufacturing, and the second largest country in commodity consumption, China's export enterprises suffer direct losses of nearly 100 billion yuan each year due to foreign technical trade measures, and increase costs by nearly 20 billion yuan. development has had a major impact.

Chen Jianan said that conformity assessment is one of the three elements of national quality infrastructure construction. As an important means to control quality and build quality trust, it can effectively support international trade and sustainable development. At the same time, conformity assessment, as a technical trade measure in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization, is a "passport" for international trade, and its implementation effect is extremely important to trade facilitation.

As a common quality management method in international trade and a tool for trade facilitation, conformity assessment has become an important part of building a high-standard service industry open system. Tian Shihong, deputy director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said that my country adheres to the concept of openness, cooperation and win-win, adheres to the policy of combining internationalization and Chineseization, and has established a conformity assessment system that is fully in line with international standards.

In terms of conformity assessment standard rules, my country actively participates in the formulation of conformity assessment standards and evaluation criteria of international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization, International Electrotechnical Commission, International Accreditation Forum, International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation Organization, etc., and converts all 39 international conformity assessment standards into equivalent It is a national standard and realizes conformity assessment activities in line with international standards.

In terms of the implementation of the conformity assessment system, my country has established a compulsory and voluntary certification system, a centralized and unified accreditation system, and a unified and standardized qualification evaluation system for inspection and testing institutions. The certification of products, services and management systems has achieved full coverage of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, government supervision, and social governance. The accreditation covers four categories: certification bodies, laboratories, inspection agencies, and verification and verification agencies. The evaluation of inspection and testing qualifications involves more than 20 industries. field.

According to Tian Shihong, there are currently 1,038 certification agencies in my country, which have issued 3.173 million valid certifications and 919,000 organizations have obtained certification; more than 51,900 inspection and testing agencies have issued 680 million inspection and testing reports annually; There are 226 institutions, more than 14,500 inspection and testing institutions, and the output value of inspection, testing and certification services exceeds 400 billion yuan.

At present, my country has joined all the four major conformity assessment mutual recognition systems of the International Electrotechnical Commission, and the number of international certifications obtained accounts for 40% of the total number of certificates. In terms of the opening of the conformity assessment market, my country has lifted the special access restrictions on foreign investment in establishing institutions in China, and a total of 72 foreign-funded certification institutions and 484 foreign-funded inspection and testing institutions have entered the Chinese market. At the same time, support domestic institutions to expand international business, obtain overseas recognition, authorization or set up overseas branches.

"At present, the century-old changes and the epidemic of the century are intertwined, protectionism and unilateralism are on the rise, and global trade facilitation is facing new severe challenges and tests. It is more important and urgent to promote international trade facilitation with standards and conformity assessment. We must coordinate both domestic and international situations, speed up the improvement of the conformity assessment system that is compatible with all-round opening, promote the 'market-oriented, international, professional, intensive and standardized' development of certification, accreditation, inspection and testing, and join hands with the international community to develop Promote the high-quality development of the open and shared service economy." Tian Shihong said.