The Ministry of Commerce released Tuesday the first batch of guidebooks detailing technical standards on export goods, helping Chinese companies to better acquaint themselves with possible technical barriers in foreign trade.

The goods covered include honey, eel, leather goods, textile products, down clothes, aluminous section material, air conditioners and electric tools. Besides specific goods, the ministry also released a guidebook about technical demands for product packages in European Union.

These information will be posted on the ministry's official website, said Wei Jianguo, vice-minister of commerce.

"World trade in modern times is often a cycle of disputes. The trick to winning modern trade wars is in technical measures in thelong run," Wei acknowledged.

Wei said that world economic integration and traditional trade barriers have been diminished or abolished gradually, but anti-dumping and technical barriers are gaining strength.

Technical trade barriers have become a crucial factor affecting China's exports in numerous fields, said Wei. Some developed nations, making full use of their advantage in technological level,have adopted a series of special standards and regulations at the excuse of safety and environmental protection.

According to ministry statistics, in recent years, two-thirds of Chinese exporters have reported suffering from technical barriers when exporting goods. Two-fifth of exported goods faced the barriers, causing economic losses of nearly 20 billion US dollars in goods value for the country every year.

Many companies failed technical barriers because of two deficiencies, said Chang Xiaocun, director in charge of scientificand technological department under the ministry. Chang cited the lack of essential information and the lack of effective solutions as the main cause of the problem.

Chang said it is very hard for companies to know all the technical standards of export destinations. The standards differ from country to country and the information is dispersed in many regulations and papers making it difficult to obtain, said Chang. In 2004 alone, WTO members reported 1,649 technical regulations, standards and assessment procedures to the organization, involvingthousands pages of technical papers.

It is also hard for companies to reach these standards immediately. Companies often need to improve their quality controlin many areas -- from the selection of raw materials to processingand export procedures.

To help companies have access to the information, the guidebooks gave detailed technical demands on specific goods in specific targeted markets, their differences from China's domesticstandards and also suggestions on possible solutions.

"With detailed explanation of varied standards at different countries, we could know where the gap is and what we should do next to improve (our quality)," said Li Hui, deputy manager of Geli Corporation, one of the largest air conditioner makers in China. "In the long run, it will help us sharpen our competitive edge on world market."

According to an ambitious plan, by the end of 2006, the ministry will release guidebooks of this kind on 100 key export goods, which will involve export volume of more than 200 billion US dollars.

China now ranks the third in the world in foreign trade, following the United States and Germany. Its foreign trade volume surpassed 1 trillion US dollars in 2004.

(Xinhua)