General

A few days ago, according to the 2022 Forum on Facilitation of Trade in Conformity Assessment Services hosted by the Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People's Republic of China, in terms of mutual recognition of conformity assessment results, China has signed 15 multilateral mutual recognition agreements and 127 bilateral cooperation and mutual recognition documents, and has established bilateral cooperation relations with more than 30 countries and regions along the "the Belt and Road", covering more than 95% of the global economy.

It is understood that conformity assessment is a systematic inspection and confirmation of the extent to which products, processes or services meet specified requirements. Internationally, the 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 recognition activities implemented to regulate the behavior of evaluation service institutions for enterprises.

Chen Jian'an, Vice President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that in recent years, under the influence of the global COVID-19 and changes in the international political situation, the phenomenon of anti globalization has become increasingly fierce. Some countries have adopted diversified technical barriers to trade, which has exacerbated the trade friction between countries.

According to the data of the World Trade Organization, the number of annual notifications of technical trade measures increased from 1259 in 2002 to 5478 in 2020. According to statistics of 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.

China, as the largest country in goods trade, manufacturing industry and commodity consumption, is the second largest country in international trade and export enterprises suffer from the impact of foreign technical trade measures every year, with direct losses of nearly 100 billion yuan and increased costs of nearly 20 billion yuan, which has a significant impact on the development of international trade enterprises.

Chen Jian'an 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, as a technical trade measure conforming to the rules of the World Trade Organization, conformity assessment is the "passport" of international trade, and its implementation effect is extremely important to trade facilitation.

As an internationally accepted means of quality management and a tool for trade facilitation, conformity assessment has become an important part of building an open system of high standard service industries. Tian Shihong, deputy director of the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, said that China adheres to the concept of openness, cooperation and win-win results, adheres to the principle of combining internationalization and localization, and has established a conformity assessment system that is fully in line with international standards.

In terms of conformity assessment standard rules, China has actively participated in the formulation of conformity assessment standards and evaluation criteria of international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission, the International Accreditation Forum, and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation Organization. All 39 international standards for conformity assessment have been equivalently transformed into national standards, which has achieved conformity between conformity assessment activities and international standards.

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

According to Tian Shihong, there are 1038 certification bodies in China, 3.173 million valid certificates have been issued, and 919000 organizations have been certified; More than 51900 inspection and testing institutions have issued 680 million inspection and testing reports annually; There are 226 recognized certification institutions, more than 14500 inspection and testing institutions, and the output value of inspection, testing and certification services exceeds 400 billion yuan.

At present, China has joined all four major qualification assessment and mutual recognition systems of the International Electrotechnical Commission, and the number of its international certification accounts for 40% of the total number of certificates. In terms of the opening of the conformity assessment market, China has cancelled the special access restrictions for foreign capital to set up institutions in China. A total of 72 foreign capital certification institutions and 484 foreign capital 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 establish overseas branches.

"At present, the century old changes and the century's epidemic are intertwined. Protectionism and unilateralism are rising. Global trade facilitation is facing new severe challenges and tests. It is more important and urgent to promote international trade facilitation through standards and conformity assessment. We need to balance the domestic and international situations, speed up the improvement of the conformity assessment system compatible with all-round opening, and promote the marketization, internationalization and professionalism of certification, accreditation, inspection and testing We will work with the international community to promote high-quality development of an open and shared service economy. " Tian Shihong said.