TBT costs China 50.5 billion U.S. dollars

On December 13, 2009, Director Yang Yi of Bureau of Industry Injury Investigation under the Ministry of Commerce said the impact of trade and technical barriers on China's exports has increased. Last year, 36 percent of China's export enterprises were affected by foreign countries' Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), and trade losses throughout the year amounted to 505 billion U.S. dollars.

Yang Yi said, as of early November this year, there were 19 countries and regions initiating 101 trade remedy investigations against products from China, involving a total of more than 11.6 billion U.S. dollars. In addition to traditional anti-dumping cases, countervailing investigations and special protectionist tariff cases also increased.

However, he also believes that although the trade friction is rising, the proportion of investigation among total trade is still relatively small.

By People's Daily Online