January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

BEIJING, Jan 4: Chinese exports will face more technical barriers in the form of rising quality standards as the country’s trade surplus continues to rise, the Vice-Premier Wu Yi has said.

Wu said the swelling trade surplus had triggered conflicts with other countries and set up barriers for Chinese exports.

“In particular, there’s a tendency in international trade protectionism for product quality issues being increasingly used as technical barriers,” Wu told a national conference on quality supervision, inspection and quarantine in Beijing on Thursday.

Official figures show that about three in 10 Chinese export firms suffered as a result of foreign technical trade regulations in 2006, with direct losses of $36 billion, reports China Daily.

Wu said that such cases would grow and technical barriers in the form of product quality standards would last for a long time.

The head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Li Changjiang also warned that exports would encounter increasing technical barriers among major trading partners like the United States and the European Union in the coming years because of strict new rules on energy use and chemical content in those markets.—APP