Standards-Related Barriers to Trade in Chinese ICT Market

Xiaomeng Lu

10/09/2009
(Original Publish Date: 9/20/2008)

When it comes to the economic analysis, in China's ICT market, some facts are: preliminary development stage of Chinese ICT industry, fast growing value of ICT market, challenges such as unevenness of ICT penetration, price and promotion competition, perceived regulatory risk, and low quality of higher education with inadequate relevancy to market needs. At the same time, standards and conformity assessment schemes are gradually being established to fulfill China's WTO accession commitment. In terms of the importance of this issue in ICT imports and exports, once erected, Chinese mandatory ICT standards and conformity assessment may result in significant barriers to trade in terms of economic value. To further understand the major stakeholder in China's ICT market - Chinese government - the policy analysis demonstrates that the focus of national development has shifted from quantitative economic growth to qualitative improvement such as the development of countryside, energy efficiency, and environmental enhancement. ICT policy highlighted by the "Indigenous Innovation" strategy intend to build the bridge between investment in technology research and development and technology innovation, which could be matched with the completed and on-going Chinese ICT standards initiatives. Under this circumstance, ICT standards could be perceived as a tool to protect domestic industry and to promote innovation in ICT sector, thus act as a trade barrier to foreign ICT companies.