On the Construction of the National Technical Standard System

On the Construction of the National Technical Standard System

Appendix I

On the Construction of National Technical Standard System

Edition of the General Report for Soliciting Comments

June 2004

Contents

Preface 1

PartⅠ current situation and historical mission of the Development of national

technical standard system12

I. A Brief review on the history of standardization12

II .Current situation and problems15

(I) Current situation and achievements15

(II) Main problems18

(III) Root of the problems20

(IV) Significant influence38

III. Historical mission45

Part II Characteristics and Enlightenments of Technical Standard System in

Foreign Countries50

I .Current situation and problems50

(I) Voluntary standard system50

(II) Multilayered technical statute system52

(III) Complete implementation and supervision system of standard53

(IV) Normative certification assessment procedures53

(V) Inspection authorities participating in standard drafting and investigation 55

(VI) A management system featured by government authorized but non-governmental organizations playing leading roles56

(VII) Market-oriented principle when establishing standard58

(VIII) Information-oriented standard service59

(IX) Diversified fund sources from finance support and standardization outlay 59

II. Main enlightenments59

(I) Enlightenment on the construction of standard system59

(II) Enlightenment on management system of standardization60

(III) Enlightenment on standard operating system60

(IV) Enlightenment on standard positioning61

Part Ⅲ Construction of national new technical standard system63

I.Guidelines, general target and basic principle of construction of the new system63

II. Major components of the new system64

III. Construction of the new system67

(I) Law and statute system of standardization67

(II) Voluntary standard system72

(III) Multilayered technical statute system73

(IV) Management system of standard76

(V) Operational mechanism of standard77

(VI) Implementation system of standard83

(VII) Guarantee system of standard85

(VIII) Service system of standard90

IV. Comparative illustrations on some key issues of new and old systems93

Part Ⅳ: Implementation of national technical standard system of PRC 98

I.Implementation principle98

II.Implementation procedures99

III. Countermeasures102

Accessory: technology supporting report104

Preface

National technical standard system is an organic integration consisting of national standards, associaion standards and enterprise standards with inherent relations, which involves a series of social, economic, science &t technology and public living fields. It acts as the guidelines for the standardization practice and provides fundamental basis for the scientific and proper construction of the technical standard system in various industries and enterprises. The construction of the national technical standard system is a system engineering aiming at optimizing and improving such links as research, establishment, implementation, supervision and services of technical standards.The goals of constructing an all-round well-off society and establishing and improving a socialist market econimy set forth by socialist market economy put forward by the 16th NPC presents demands to accelerate and improve the construction of national technical standard new system, deepen the reform on its administrative system and operational mechanism, formulate and improve its implementation, guarantee and service system so as to achieve an all-round, coordinated, rapid and sustainable development of a standardization cause in PRC.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for establishment and improvement of socialist market economy system. A fine economic and market opering order may offer system foundations for a sound and steady development of national economy. It is also a necessary condition and environment for fair competition of subject of market and rational flow of resources. As a system safeguard for market operational mechanism, the national technical standard system is not only a necessary method to maintain national economic orders, but also a vital foundation for promoting economic developments and scientific & technological progress. It functions as technical backup for sharpening national competitive edge as well. It is playing a leading role for the upgrade of product’s quality, optimization of economic benefits, regulating of standardization of market orders, utilization of resources in a rational way and environmental protection, promotion of a scientific development concept featured by human-oriented economy and an all-round sustainable development society.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for promoting international trades and safeguarding national security. With the accelerating process of economy globalization and trade liberalization, domestic markets get integrated into the international markets rapidly. Therefore, technical standards sees increasingly important functions in international trades. WTO members take “technology wall” with the major contents of technology regulations, standards, qualification assessment procedures as a substitute of tariff wall. At present, the former “wall” has been a rational and effective trade protective measure. Therefore, to a great extent, competitions in the international markets has already evolved into technical standard competition. However, the current overall level of China’s technical standards lags behind. Especially in the field concerning high and new technology, the current status of being controlled by foreign advanced countries has severely impacted the competitive strength of China’s products at international market. Standardization operations lagging behind resulting in measures for five legitimate objectives protection unable to take effect in time has severely threatened the economic security of China and restricted the sustainable development of China’s economy and society as well.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for promoting scientific and technological progress and technology innovation. Scientific & technological progress and technology innovation is the ultimate motive power of economic and social development. It is a kind of fountain that can never be drained for the improvement of national competitive edge. Only realizing the transformation from scientific & technological achievements into practical productivity can the scientific & technological advantage be converted into competitive advantage, which in turn achieves economic advantages. Moreover, giving full play to the operation of technology diffusion of standard to promote the transformation from scientific & technological achievements to practical productivity is a very important means and measures to launch new products, form new industry and facilitate optimization and upgrade of the industrial structure. And it is a bound choice to take every effort to improve the technical level of standards so as to realize “the strategy of science and education prospering China”.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for the improvement of China's law and statute system. Administration according to law is an ultimate requirement for the construction of a socialist legal state and is an essential guarantee for propelling the development of economy and society in an all-round way. A normative and improved law and statute system offers basis for government administration according to law. The establishment and improvement of law and statute system related to standardization so as to realize the transition from the currently active mandatory standards to mandatory technology specifications and eventually transition to technical rules is the legal guarantee for the management according to law and the all-round development of standardization operations. It also functions as an important part of the law and statute system of PRC.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for deepening the reform of administration system.The establishment of a modern public service government is a primary goal of its administration reform, which involves government functions positioning and administrative style innovation. The primary function of government administration is to provide public articles and services reliably and efficially, and transfers to the enterprises those products and services that can be supplied by the market and enterprises.The administrative style of directly intervening markets and enterprise behaviors shall be transformed to provide legal guarantee, policy guidance and normal services for the healthy operations of markets and enterprises. The improvement of management system and operational mechanism of the new national technical standard to realize right-about–face change of the standardization management mode is a bound demand and an important content of deepening reform of government administration.

Construction of a new national technical standard system is an urgent demand for sharpening competitive edge in the international market. In face of the booming and ever-changing new situations and new challenges, the current national technical standard system, which was born out of such a period with specific economy pattern featured by giving priority to planned economy whereas market economy only functioning as its complement, is far from satisfaction of the practical requirements for all-round development of economy and society concerning the following aspects as enhancing capabilities of technology innovation and aggressively tapping the market, improving quality and added value of export commodities and expanding export of high and new technology products as well as enhancing the capability of participating international cooperation and competition. Therefore, how to establish a new national technical standard system that is able to conform to socialist market economy system and basic rules of international trade, speed up China’s economic development and scientific & technological progress and enhance international competitive strength as soon as possible becomes a very important and urgent task to be accomplished.

The architecture and construction ideas of a new national technical standard system. The Construction of a new national technical standard system consists of two large sections ,the basic system construction and the introducing system construction. As the principal part of the construction of overall new system, the basic system includes two kinds of forms, transitional period form and objective state form. During the transitional period, mandatory technical specification system and voluntary standard system will be established to ensure smooth transition of mandatory standards; while objective state will achieve complete desquamation between technical regulation and technical standard, and a sound voluntary standard system consisting of national standard, associaion standard and enterprise standard will be formed. Introducing system is a foundation for the survival and development of the basic system. It is a complicated system design which is restricted by many factors and has an wide influences. It Involves the following issues as coordination and support of law and regulation, connections between mandatory technical specification and its technology regulation system, organic incorporations with voluntary standard system as well as how to frame the management system, operational mechanism, supervision carrying out system, security system and service system inside the promotion system and their coordination and supporting operations. It involves the following issues as coordination and support of law and regulation, connections between mandatory technical specifications and its technology regulation system, organic incorporations with voluntary standard system as well as how to frame the management system, operational mechanism, supervision carrying out system, security system and service system inside the promotion system and their coordination and supporting operations. Therefore, construction of a national technical standard system is a significant and sophisticated system engineering, which requires an overall idea featured by integral coordination, key point breakthrough, steady implementation and substantial results ensuring.

Main contents of the researching task on the construction of a new national technical standard system. An comprehensive analysis covering current situation and development trend of foreign technical standard systems and accurately taking full command of current situation and existing key problems of technical standard system of PRC offers foundation for the construction of the new system. The formulation of a basic system with law and regulation as basis and the voluntary standard system as principal part is the key point in construction of the new system. A reform scheme for the technical standard management system, operating mechanism, implementation supervision and the ensuring service system which is suitable for our national conditions is critical to the construction of the new system. Rectification of current technical standards so as to actively propel transformation from current mandatory standards to mandatory technical specifications until the transformation of technology regulations and the transformation from current professional standard to associaion standard is relized serves as precondition of new system construction. speeding up establishment of technical standard systems in the key areas is the penetration point in the construction of the new system. The above five important issues constitute the major contents of this reseraching task.

Following are the basic theories and methods used in this report:

——Public administrative theory. In accordance with the basic positioning to roles and functions of a modern government defined by public administration theory, the government shall mainly provide public articles and services in relation to national interests and public interests of the society, while other products and services shall be completely transferred to the market and enterprises to accomplish. The government shall protect national interests and public interests of the society by laws and regulations to exercise the finite administration and macro-control.

——Principle of government economics. According to the basic principles of the government economics, the government is an entity possessing tremendous investments and outputs involving transaction costs and management benefits. Exercising administration by law and offering public services, the modern government must be an economic government with low investments but high yields, i.e., public articles and services in the form of policies as its output must consume minimum investments while gain maximum economic and social benefits. Therefore, rectification of current national technical standards, elimination of the cross and repetitive policies enacted by different government departments and establishment of a voluntary standard system will be bound to decrease public administration costs of the government and improve its management efficiency.

——Theory of “study by the third party”. According to “study by the third department” theory, non-profitable organizations, as “the third party” neither equal to the government nor the market, will function uniquely and make up for the dual defects taking place when both the government and the market do not work properly. By comparison with governmental public functions concerning providing public articles and services, non-profitable organizations are featured by such advantages as neutrality, diversified self-determination, wide-ranging participation, flexiability and low cost. Thus, this study lays special emphasis on exercising functions of associations---a kind of nonprofit organizations--- in the construction of the national technical standard system. And it proposes that associaion standards shall serve as a part of the voluntary standard system to fit the sharp changes of economic environments and diversified market characteristics.

——System theory. According to the structural and functional principle of the system theory, exertion of overall functions of a system not only relies on the characteristics of various factors that constitute the system, but more importantly relies on the structural relationships among those factors and the relationship between the system and the external environments. Based on the above theory elaborated, this study concern not only the construction of the basic system, but much more the construction of the promotion system that provides basis for the survival and development of the basic system as well as the coordination and harmonious development between the two systems. Consequently, the integrated functions of the national technical standard system can be effectively exercised.

During the overall process of this study, the following specific research methods are adopted:

——Method of theoretical guidance in combination with empirical analysis. The construction of the national technical standard system is a research task with very strong applicability and practicality.

Under the ideological guidance of such fundamental principles as public administration, government economics, theory of structural function and standardization theory, we stress on the demonstrative investigation and study of current situations of domestic and foreign technical standard systems and their development trends, hoping that our study will be both theorically far-seeing and practically feasible, will have practical effects on the current reform and leave some space for the forthcoming development .

——Method of vertical comparison in combination with horizontal comparison. During the process of this study, we carry out combing the development evolution of China’ standardization cause with a historically vertical comparative approach and give special emphasis on the comparison and analysis of existing problems and their historical contributing factors, which lay a factual foundation for our further analysis and study. Meanwhile, we conduct a comparative analysis for the current situation and characteristics of foreign technical standard systems with a synchronistically horizontal comparative approach, which offers reference basis to the establishment of the new national technical standard system. We see an issue on how to handle the relationship between utilization for reference and development hereby. We shall use experiences of foreign advanced countries and international practices for reference and simultaneously incorporate with China’s development characteristics at present stage. Only in this way the construction of a new system can both get integrated into international practices and be suitable for the national situation of PRC.

——Method of overall propulsion in combination with key point breakthrough. The construction of the national technical standard system is a great system engineering, so it is impossible to advance in parallel and be accomplished in one move. During the study, we stress on the overall reform of the technical standard system, at the same time we focus on taking the key issues as penetration points, thereby we can fan out from a point to an area, and combine work at selected points with that of the whole area so that mutual promotion will be achieved.

——Method of active responses in combination with steady implementation. We stress in the study that we should not only recognize the challenge and pressure on the technical standard system generated by economy globalization and China’s economic development, but also see the deep-seated reality of enormous old system still exercising function and long-existed system problems. We should actively advance forward and steadily implement the reform at the same time so as to smoothly handle the replacement and connection from the old system to the new system and ensure their smooth transition.

Part Ⅰ Current Situation and Historical Mission of the Development of National Technical Standard System

I. A brief review on history of standardization.

Standardization is a process in such social practice activities as science and technology, economy & trade and management, etc. In this process, repetitive matters and concepts reach unified by the establishment and implementation of standards so as to obtain optimal order and the best effectiveness. Standardization is a subject as well as a management technology. Its range of applications almost covers all of the areas relevant to human activities. Standardization efforts have a very long history. Characters invented by the human race in remote antiquity is one of the most outstanding achievements of standardization efforts.

Standardization, in a modern sense, is the outcome of Industrial Revolution in western modern times. In May,1865, the representatives from 20 countries including France, Germany, Russia etc., convened in Paris and established the first international organization for standardization--- International Telegraph Union. The establishment of British Engineering Standard Committee in 1901 announced the birth of the first national standardization organization in the world. In June,1906, representatives from 13 countries including Britain, France, the United States and Japan, etc. gathered in London and formally established International Electrotechnical Commission( IEC). Till 1932, 25 countries in the world established national standardization institutions. In February,1947, the establishment of International Organization for Standardization(ISO) sponsored by 25 countries ushered in a new epoch in standardization history of human being. As one of the sponsor countries of ISO, china established its industrial standardization committee as early as December, 1931.

Making a general survey of the development history (1) of standardization in modern times, it is not difficult for us to come to such a conclusion: industrialized mass production is the “brooder" and "propeller" of standardization operations in modern times. Firstly, only producing products in accordance with such technical requirements as uniform specifications, dimensions and so forth could the predominance of industrialization be maximally exercised and the cost reduction and productivity improvement be achieved. This is so-called production property raised in standards. Secondly, the social division of labor and the specialized production promots the demands for commonality and interchangeability of products. This is so-called trading property raised in standards. With the expansion of the industrialization scale and the market scope, especially the rise of the international trade, uniform technical requirements in a more larger range became an inherent demand in the law of economic and trading development. The birth, development and strengthening of national standard organizations, regional standard organizations and International Standard Organization are the inevitable outcomes adapted to this historical trend.

Since 1960s, with the development of global economy and international trade, WTO has established important status of technical standards in the international trade by signing technological trade barriers treaty (TBT agreement) and so forth,. Its "Appropriate Behavior Norm of Formulation, Adoption and Standard Implementation" has become the code of behavior in standard institutions at all levels. International standards are not only the basis for reference when members formulate their technical regulations and standards, but also the basic grounds when they sign contracts and settle disputes in international trade. Ever since then the trading property of technical standards has been highlighted and the function of technical standards to international trades, economic developments and technology diffusions has raised to an unprecedented height.

The development process of China's standardization is an epitome of its social economy development and social systems transition. From the prospective of the evolution of the China national technical standard system and the standardization management system , the development process of China national technical standard system can be divided into the following three stages.

The First Stage（1949-1988）

A national technical standard system that accommodates socialist planned economy system has been gradually built up. The "Administrative Regulation on Standardization of the People’s Republic of China" issued in 1979 served as the legal basis and the remarkable achievement of standardization operations at this stage.This regulation stipulated that standards in China shall be divided into national standards, ministrial (specialty) standards and enterprise standards. The State Council and its departments, local governments and enterprises all shall set up institutions to administrate standardization operations. National and ministrial (specialty）standards shall be developed by those key standardization institutions designated by those authories concerned.and approved and issued by responsible departments. Furthermore, once issued, those standards shall validate and function as technical regulations and must be strictly carried out and implemented. And product standards of enterprises must be approved by the departments that is in charge of the enterprises. The main features of the composition of the national technical standard system and the mode of its operation and management at this stage are that the government played the leading role, administrative orders were exercised as basic means and the administrative compulsory means was adopted to secure implementation of standard.

The second stage（1988-2001）

A national technical standard system, which offered technical basis suitable for the transition to socialist market economy system, had been gradually built up to accommodate socialist commodity economy with certain extent of plan. The "standardization law of people 'S republic of china" issued in 1988 and the "enforcement regulations on standardization law of people' S republic of china" issued in 1990 and A series of department regulations and normalization management documents that were subsequently issued served as legal basis of standardization operations and remarkable achievements at this stage.

Standard in China was divided into national standard, professional standard, local standard and enterprise standard at this stage. And standard was classified into such two types as mandatory standard and recommendation standard. From the perspective of standard formulation, more standards were referred to professional technical committee for standardization consisting of experts to take charge of draft and deliberation. And the state encouraged adaptation of international standard and foreign advanced standard. From the perspective of standard implementation, state encouraged enterprises to adopt recommendation standard of their own accord. Meanwhile, product authentication system was promoted and those qualified could make use of authentication mark. These measures were significant innovations on national standard management system and national technical standard system with reference to the operating mode of ISO and in combination with China national situation. And they established basis for connection with international practices and the development hereafter. We have to admit that as a result of limitation of objective condition and restriction from management system and operation mechanism，national technical standard system still had not shaked off the trammel of planned economy system. Such negative factors, for instance, standardization management model characterized by plan playing the leading role and government functioning as major players in the market had hindered the full exertion of standardization operation potentials.

The third stage（2001-）

A national technical standard system and a standardization management system in accommodation with socialist market economy system started to be established. In order to be seasoned with WTO rules and the demand for improving socialist market economy system, the State Council initiated China National Standards Administration Committee (SAC), which has become the origin of China national standardization reform in the new century and conducted beneficial attempt for the reform of China national technical standard system and standardization management model.

II. Current situation and problems

(I) Current situation and achievements

Ever since the establishment of the People's Republic of China(1949--), especially over twenty years development after adopted the policy of reform and open door to the outside world, remarkable achievements on national standardization operations have been gained. To the end of the year 2003, there were 20,906 items of national standard in the People’s Republic of China (excluding standards of engineering constructions after NO.GB50, 000), among which there were 2952 items of mandatory national standard, 17,899 items of recommendation national standard and 55 items of directional technical documents on national standardization, covering as many as 8 sections including foundation, method, security, sanitation, environmental protection, product, management and the other, etc.(the condition of national standard type distribution see figure 1.1); and there were over 28,000 items of professional standard, 5737 items of local standard and nearly 1,110,000 items of enterprise standard put on records. These standards have been exercising vital functions for the enhancement of China's product quality, production cost reduction and acceleration of economy development. The next step is to summarize the current state of layer structure, management system, operation mechanism and administrative organization, etc. in the existing national technical standard system so that comprehend the basic condition of existing national technical standard system from the perspective of an overall sense.

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Figure1.1The Type Distribution of National Standard

China national standard can be divided into such four layer structures as national standard, professional standard, local standard and enterprise standard from the perspective of layer structures of national technical standard. The structure is shown as figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Layer Structure of Existing National Technical Standard

From the perspective of management system, the organizational framework mainly consists of national standardization administration committee, relevant administration departments concerned of the State Council, standardization administration departments concerned of province and autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government and institutions of enterprise standardization. And national standard is under the centralized management of national standardization administration committee, professional standard is mainly under the supervision of responsible administrative departments of the State Council, local standard is under the control of responsible administration departments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and enterprise standard is under the management of enterprises independently, product standard of enterprise shall be put on records. From the perspective of operational mechanism, mandatory standard is compulsorily implemented by department concerned of government; recommendation standard is adopted by the enterprises at their own will and shall be in combination with product authentication system. From the perspective of modification process, formulation and modification on national standard is mainly performed by National Standardization Administration Committee in a unified form; formulation and modification on professional standard is conducted by responsible administration departments of the State Council, formulation and modification on local standard is made by responsible standardization administration departments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and formulation and modification on enterprise standard is executed by enterprises themselves. Especially from the perspective of management operation process of national standard, professional standard and local standard, the requirement proposal, organization of formulation, promulgation and implementation of the majority of the standards are conducted by departments of government(basic management and operational frame of current national, professional and local standard is shown in diagram 1.3).

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Diagram 1.3 Frame of Management and Operation Structure of Current National, Professional and Local Standar

Survey indicated that by the end of the year 2003,there were 362 standardization administrative agencies in provinces and municipalities (regions)；one national research institution on standardization---China Academy of Standardization; 26 research institutions subordinated ministries and commissions and specialized standardization institutions; 158 standardization research institutions subordinated provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government(regions)；one national standardization association and 85 standardization associations subordinated provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government(region) and 12 specialized standard associations subordinated ministries and commissions; one press on national standard；one national standard library；and currently there are 259 all kinds of technical committees on specialized standard, 339 branch technical committees including total number of over 30,000 committee members；And there are 100,000 research and development personnel who are engaged in standardization study in sections covering standardization academy and research institutes, universities, enterprises and institutions; and there are over 22,000 management personnel of standardization.

And among them, those with senior professional titles account for 23%, intermediate professional titles account for 58% and primary professional titles account for 19% and educational background upward junior college accounts for 89%.To sum up, since its establishment, the People's Republic of China has been acquired tremendous achievements on its standardization efforts, which have been exercising undoubted functions in the development of national economy and society.

However, with economy globalization and China's entry to WTO, such series of problems rooted from the structural barriers existed in current national technical standard system, and its derivatives such as disagreement with WTO requirements on content and form of technical standard, incapable of adapting to the market demand and hindrance to the progress of science and technology, have come a bottleneck when adjust China's economic structure, standardize market order and sharpen the competitive edge of product. This report will separately conduct study on key problems existed in current system, root of those problems and their influences by following such basic ideas as taking the discovery of problems existed as precondition, analysis on the root of the problems as key point and elimination of influences as purpose.

(II) Main problems

The principal part of current national technical standard is national, professional and enterprise standard. All of the fields in various layer structures and different kinds of technical standard constitute the essence of the basic system of national technical standard. Therefore, key problems existed in specific technical standard on each layers must be analyzed so as to objectively and accurately seize those essential problems existed in current technical standard. Meanwhile, for the purpose of mastering the defects existed in basic system of current national technical standard from a thorough and overall sense, only by conducting a thorough and detailed analysis to the rationality, integrality and scientificalness of basic system structure can a reliable argument basis be offered to the establishment of the new system. Based on the above analysis, this report firstly analyzes the problems existed in technical standard at different layer structures and in return to reveal the defects existed basic system of current technical standard.

1. Problems existed in technical standard

Currently there are 54,279 items of national, profession and local technical standard altogether. Furthermore, all of them include such two types as mandatory standard and recommendation standard, which serve as main basis for market supervision of the state and all levels of government and the production operations of businesses at all levels. Because the influential scope of national standard, professional standard and local standard is much greater than enterprise standard, for the convenience of seizing the key points, we will put emphasis upon discussion on the key problems existed in current national standard, professional standard and local standard.

（1） Problems existed in national standard

National standard is the foundation and core element of national technical standard system. In a sense, problems existed in national standard reflect the defects in current technical standard system from another aspect. Therefore, a thorough analysis on the problems existed in national standard is vital to the further analysis on system structure of national technical standard. Investigation and research indicate that there mainly exist the following aspects of problems in current national standard.

① The formulation and modification cycle of standard lasts too long, which can not satisfy the market requirement.

Statistics analysis on formulation and modification project involving 8,389 items of national standard from 1993 to 2000 indicates that average formulation and modification cycle of national standard is 4.7 years. Due to its prolonged cycle on standard formulation, it can not be seasoned with the steps of technological progress and industrial upgrade.

Table1.1 Questionnaire on formulation and modification cycle

of national standard project

Number

Cycle

Quantity of standard

Proportion（%）

1

Within three years

3,690

43.99

2

Within four years

1,391

16.58

3

Within five years

1,146

13.66

4

Within six years

578

6.89

5

Ten years or above

716

8.35

② Standard age is too old and outdated.

Survey on 20,906 items of national standard indicates that the average age of national standard reaches as many as 10.12 years. The oldest is 41 years. And there are 30 items of national standard issued even in 1960s. National standard with age of five years upward reaches 15,205 items, which accounts for 62.73% of the gross number. The severely outmoded condition of national standard is one of the major reasons why China national technical standard drags behind the development of science and technology and economy concerning technology capability.

Table 1.2 Questionnaire on the age of current national standard

Year of promulgation

Quantity

Proportion

Age

1963～1993

9,608

45.96%

Exceed 10 years, extremely long

1994～1998

5,597

26.77%

Five~10years,

over length

1999～2003

5701

27.27%

Within five years, normal

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

美国

欧盟

日本

其他

法规变化

标准提高

合格评定程序

增加检验检疫项目

审查程序复杂

人为拖延检验检疫时间

其他

③Adoption rate is not low, whereas the majority of adoption is from international standard of 10 years ago.

Among the existing 20,906 items national standard, 9,250 items have adopted international standard and foreign advanced standard including 4,539 items of ISO standard, 1882 items of IEC standard, 287 items of ISO IEC standard, 48 items of ITU standard and 2,494 items of other foreign advanced standard. Adoption rate reaches 44.25%, which is a relatively high proportion. But after detailed comparison, we found that in 6,708 items adopted from ISO and IEC standard (with total number of 16,910), 78.65% were standard in the year 1994 or previous of ISO and IEC.

标准相对数量分布

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

01

03

07

11

13

17

19

21

23

25

27

29

31

33

35

37

39

43

45

47

49

53

55

59

61

65

67

71

73

75

77

79

81

83

85

87

91

93

95

97

ICS一级分类

相对数量(%)

中国国家标准(20906)

德国国家标准(29269)

法国国家标准(24174)

ISO标准(13118)

日本国家标准(9106)

产品

30%

安全

3%

方法

41%

管理

2%

环保

1%

基础

19%

卫生

4%

其他

0%

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

196319651967196919711973197519771979198119831985198719891991199319951997199920012003

国际标准国家标准中采用的国际标准

Figure 1.4 The year distribution chart on adoption of international standard and foreign advanced standard in China national standard

Meanwhile, detailed analysis on 4,826 items of national standard adopted from ISO standard indicates that 2,984 items are adopted from current ISO standard and account for 62%; 1,106 items are adopted from renewed ISO standard and account for 23%; 736 items are adopted from canceled or invalidated ISO standard and account for 15%. This is also one of the major reasons why China national technical standard is far inferior to international similar standard concerning technology capabilities.

④Technology capability is comparatively inferior and there exists a large gap.

In some areas, national standard has to accommodate itself to current production technology level and falls behind socioeconomic development and requirement of market economy, which is unfavorable to technology innovations. By comparison with international standard and foreign advanced standard, its technology capability is comparatively inferior and there exists a large gap.

For instance，the limit standard to pesticide residue in foodstuffs in China only defines maximum limit of 232 items of pesticide residues involving 92 kinds of pesticides in 30 kinds of foodstuffs. But in France, the United States and Japan,etc., a large number of standards have been established to define the specific limit of over one thousand items of pesticide residues in a wide variety of foodstuffs involving over one hundred kinds pesticides.

FAO／WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission（CAC）defines 2,439 items of maximum residual limit standard for 176 kinds of pesticides and 375 kinds of foodstuffs.

⑤ there exists incoordinations and contradictions in different contents of mandatory standard

There exist incoordinations or even contradictory contents between current national mandatory standards. For instance, China National Foodstuff Security Mandatory Standard GB 2721－1996 " Table Salt Hygienic Standard" specifies that the content of fluorine shall not exceed 25mg/kg, whereas mandatory standard GB 5461－2000 "Table Salt" specifies that the content of fluorine shall not exceed 5.0mg/ kg；mandatory standard GB10767－1997 "General Specification For Baby And Child Formula Flour And Baby And Child Supplement Farina" specifies the enrichment quantity of iodine shall be 30μg/ 100g～150μ g/100g，whereas mandatory standard GB14880 "Hygienic Standard For The Use Of Foodstuff Nutrition Enhancer" specifies enrichment quantity of iodine shall be 25μ g/100g～ 48μg /100g；mandatory standard GB10767－ 1997 specifies the limit of nitrate and nitrite, whereas standard GB10769－ 1997 "Supplementary Food For Infant And Child In Ablactation Period" and mandatory standard GB10770－ 1997 "Supplementary Food For Infant And Child In Ablactation Period" dose not set limit to the quantity of nitrate and nitrite；And so forth.

⑥The content and form of technical standard do not satisfy the requirements of WTO rules

WTO/ TBT treaty specifies that product standard shall be formulated as far as possible in accordance with performance requirements of products instead of characteristic of design or description. Take product standard in national standard for example, most of China's product standards are formulated from the prospective of production instead of aiming at performance requirements of product. Attributed to stress on the requirements of product design and process, etc.. Most of the national standards possess the defects that they are miscellaneous, meticulous and only limited to the some single product. That is to say, the deficiency of technical compatibility objectively hinders the development of technology and trade of PRC.

Standards in China are divided into mandatory standard and recommendation standard in accordance with their properties. They are indeed relevant to WTO/TBT treaty and featured by universal applicability, but set limit to the option of users. Therefore, they are neither inapplicable to trading nor agree with the principle of standard. In countries with market economy system, the enforceability of standard application is assigned by law and regulation. Standard itself does not possess enforceability. As a kind of normalization document, the emergency of standard is to satisfy the demand of market in the hope of decreasing meaningless economic expenses. Standards are formulated by various circles organized together involving relevant market and technology of standards. And this kind of organizations gradually becomes recognized institutions. Standards issued by those recognized institutions are offered for the voluntary applications of various circles. Recognized institutions themselves are not legislatives, therefore, they do not possess legislative power and it is impossible for them to demand all of the circles in the society must execute their standards. Only on the strength of its outstanding applicability of standard and reputation and authority that are gradually established can its influences of standards be expanded. Only laws and regulations established by legislatives for the purpose of legislation (mainly to protect national interest and social public interests) possess the property of enforcement.

The formulation procedure of China current mandatory standard is still that standard determines procedures, which has a large gap by comparison with legislative procedures; in addition, from the perspective of content, analysis on China current 2,952 items of mandatory national standards indicates that there are 1,612 items of standards exceeding the five legitimate objectives ( national security safeguard, fraud prevention, personal health and security protection, life and health of animals and plants protection and environmental protection) specified in WTO TBT treaty and account for 54.61% of the total number. And among them there are 1,113 items of mandatory national standards on products.

Figure 1.5 Distribution chart of mandatory national standard types

（2）Problems existed in professional standards

From the perspective of professional standard, in addition to above similar problems existed in national standard, there still exists the following several aspects of typical problems:

①The current professional standard is the outcome of planned economy and formulated for the convenience of management and production organization by government.

With the gradual improvement of socialist market economy, original profession boundaries have already been smashed. The major users of professional standards---planned enterprises within professions have been replaced by enterprise union that adopts the market principle. Therefore, some professional standards have lost their practical users resulting in some professional standards practically performing no functions.

②The principal part conducting the project establishment, examination and promulgation on current professional standard is the department in charge of those professions. However, with the advancement of reform on China’s governmental agencies, some originally existed departments in charge on professions have been cancelled and some merged with the other ministries and commissions, which results in a group of principal parts working on the formulation and modification to professional standards have been naturally withered. The possibility of further modification, maintenance, etc., on some professional standards has been faded away thereby. So it is pointless to talk about their market applicability.

③ Current professional standards have no any essential differences with national standards no matter concerning the procedures of formulation and modification (each link of formulation and modification) or the property (mandatory and recommendation) of standards. In addition, the function of current standards has no difference with that of national standards. They are just national standards within professions. Hence, large numbers of crossing and repetition occur between many profession standards and national standards and among those professional standards.For instance, Department of Agriculture established the professional standard of pesticide bactericide Agritol in 1990's, but National Pesticide Standard Committee again established chemical lines standard HG3616-- 3618 - 1999 "Technical Toxicant, Missible Oil and Wettable Powder of Agritol". The professional standard of broadcasting, film and television GY / T148 - 2000 "Technical Requirements on Satellite Digital Television Receiver" and electronics professional standard SJ / T11219 - 2000 "General Specification on Satellite Digital Television Receiver"; professional standard of supply and distribution GH / T1027 - 2000 "Galvanized Wire Applied to Cotton Packaging" and professional standard of ferrous metallurgy YB / T 5033 - 2001 " Galvanized Wire Applied to Cotton Packaging"; professional standard of construction industry JG / T 134 - 2000 "Plumb Circulation Parking Facility" and professional standard of machinery JB / T 10215 - 2000 "plumb circulation mechanic parking facility " and so forth. The above illustrated have crossing repetitions in their contents, which result in relevant enterprises at loose ends when execute those standards.

④ By comparison with national standards, the majority of professional standards possess longer update cycle resulting in inferior technical criteria of standards. The technical contents of technical standards neither reflect the changes of market demand, nor exercise the intermediary functions of popularization and spread of advanced technologies. Take 22,260 items of professional standards for traditional industries and commerce as example, the age of standards exceeds five years but never being revised account for 60% and their technology only can be close to medium-term level in 1990's of China. What's more, China metallurgy industry standards with age exceeding 7 years account for 81%.And their technology level still remains the early period of 1990's of China.

(3) Problems in the local standards

In order to objectively analyze the problems in local standards, we have comprehensively investigated altogether 5,737 items of the recorded local standards belong to provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government. And there are 1,642 items of mandatory local standards and 4,095 items of recommendation local standards, which respectively account for 28.62% and 71.38% of the total number of local standards. (see figure 1.6）

Figure 1.6 Analysis and collection diagram of local standards

Analysis indicates that there mainly exist the following problems involving six areas in local standards:

(1) The contents of some local standards exceed the legal scope

The second item of "Management Method of Local Standards" issued by China National Bureau of Technical Supervision in Sep. 6, 1990 clearly specifies the scope of local standards: when the following demands for unification in the range of provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the Central Government, while no national standards or professional standards available to define such demands, then relevant local standards can be formulated（including the fabrication of standard samples): （a）the security and hygienic requirements of industrial products;（b）the requirements specified by law and statute on medicine, animal remedy, food sanitation, environmental protection, energy conservation, seeds, etc.;（c）other requirements specified by law and statute.

Some provinces have established local standards for the objects that have already specified by national standards or professional standards. Take moon cake for instance, the government has established strict standards on its hygienic indices. But in recent years, the moon cake market has fallen into disorder. Under such circumstances, some provinces formulated mandatory local standards on the technical indices of this kind of products to ensure the quality. Experts point out that, most of such quality indices not only are redundant, but also have disturbed the development and innovations of foodstuffs with unique regional flavors. In some provinces, the local standards formulated for industrial products not only limit the security and hygienic requirements, but complete industrial product standards are formulated. "Aluminum Mold Clad Pipe" for example.

(2) The mandatory scope of some current mandatory local standards is too broad.

The “Standardization Law" specifies that, mandatory local standards only shall be formulated according to the demands on industrial products in terms of the security and hygiene as well law and statute. According to relevant requirements of WTO/TBT treaty, the formulation of technical statute must be in conformity with the following five legitimate objectives, namely national security safeguard, fraud prevention, protection of individual's health and security, protection to the life or health of animals and plants and environmental protection. However, the others do not belong to the mandatory scope.

However, the mandatory scope of some current mandatory local standards is too broad. For instance, some local standards specify that, dimension, type, specification, structure and so forth shall be compulsory. While some local standards specify that certain agricultural products, foodstuffs, marine products and livestock products shall be mandatory. For instance, "Jasmine Tea" , " Big Scarlet Date Produced in Hami", "Seedless Raisins ", "Rice Noodle" and so forth. These requirements shall not be compulsorily executed were specified as mandatory, which limit the development of enterprise products and hinder the process of promoting product quality via market competition. Meanwhile they may jeopardize the administrations and enforcements of law.

(3) Repetitions and contradictions occur between some local standards

With the economic development and social demands increasing, such phenomena as similar local standards formulated for the same kind of products or objects are increasing by leaps and bounds. These conductions generate repetitions and contradictions between local standards in different regions and affect trading between different regions and shopping of consumers as well. Meanwhile, this kind of phenomena raise an urgent need for speeding up the formulation of national standards or professional standards in such areas.

Table 1.3 Repetitive illustration of mandatory local standards

Number

Name

Department concerned

DB53/097-2002

Specification on Alcohol Content in Blood When Vehicle Drivers are Driving

DB11/217-2003

Alcohol Content Value And Testing Method of Blood And Expiration of Vehicle Drivers

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Peking<

DB32/625-2003

Limit to Alcohol Content in Blood When Vehicle Drivers are Driving

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau Jiangsu Province

DB31/205-2003

Specification on Alcohol Content in Blood When Vehicle Drivers are Driving

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Shanghai

DB50/25-1999

Alcohol Content Value And Testing Method of Blood and Expiration of Vehicle Drivers When They are Driving

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Chongqing

DB12/125-2001

Technical Specification for Security System of Residential District

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Tianjin

DB43/159-2002

Technical Specification for Security System of Residential District

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Hunan Province

DB22/335-2002

Security System of Residential District

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Jilin Province

DB31/294-2003

Technical requirements for security system of residential district

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Shanghai

DB34/344-2003

Lead Free Gasoline Applied to Vehicle with Detersive

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Anhui Province

DB33/409-2003

Lead Free Gasoline Applied to Vehicle with Detersive

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Zhejiang Province

DB/37380-2003

Lead Free Gasoline Applied to Vehicle with Detersive

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Shandong province

Table 1.4 Repetitive illustration of recommendation local standards

Number

Name

Department concerned

DB11/T100-1998

Quality Standard of Beauty Treatment and Hairdressing

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Peking

DB23/T39-2001

Quality Standard of Beauty Treatment and Hairdressing

>Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Heilongjiang Province

DB36/T382-2002

Quality Standard of Beauty Treatment and Hairdressing

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Jiangxi Province

DB62/T1032-2003

Quality Standard of Hairdressing(Haircut) and Beauty Treatment of Nanzhou City

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Gansu Province

DB53/T086-2000

Silicon fertilizer

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Yunnan Province

DB41/T131-1999

Silicon fertilizer

Quality And Technology Supervision Bureau of Henan Province

（4）The grade division of and the index requirements for the same objects lack coherence in some local standards

There are about 10 items of national standards, professional standards and local standards concerning all kinds of rice in China. And the names include top grade and the first grade refined rice, washing-free rice and standard rice, nuisance free high quality rice and so forth. In face of so many rice standards, no wonder people may feel puzzled: are those standards in different provinces the same?" If all of the standards are the same, why not adopt a uniform national standard or professional standard？If those standards are not the same, then which one is the better?

Indices of the first grade refined rice listed in local standard DB42/T228 2002 of Hubei Province are higher than that of the top grade specified in local standard of Jiangxi Province and cutin rate requirement is added in Hubei as well.

But in Tianjin city, the rice is divided into such two types as washing-free and standard rice in the local standard DB12/T132 2001. And the quality index of washing-free rice is higher than corresponding standard rice of the same grade. Furthermore, its quality indices such as moisture, unsound kernel, yellow granule rice, impurity, broken rice and so forth are higher than corresponding indices of local standard of the other provinces.

In Jiangxi Province ,the local standard DB36 T375 -2001 for nuisance free high quality rice (suitable for sticky rice), besides quality indices, it also specifies 18 limit indices of pesticide residue；except the above mentioned, it also specifies 6 kinds of heavy metal limit indices involving benzopyrene, fluoride, chloride, cyanogen compound and carbon bisulfide, etc. Actually the above hygienic standards are formulated with reference to relevant national standards; in Shanghai, the exterior condition and quality requirements specified in local standard DB31 /T263.1 - 2001 are implemented in accordance with GB1350, GB1354 and GB/ T17891.In addition, total 99 limit indices are specified to heavy metal and pesticide residue.

Different local standards bearing the same names but the contents differ, even rice of the same grade but quality level differs. Under such circumstances, it certainly makes consumers feel puzzled. It may occur that the extra best quality in the high quality rice produced in some province is not as good as the first quality rice produced in another province. In that case, it may jeopardize consumer's interests.

(5) Some local standards are virtually barriers of trade and technology

As a result of the imbalances and differences of economic development and technical levels in different regions, some mandatory local standards concerning quality, environmental protection or security set limit to products from other regions entering local market. This kind of standards is virtual trade barriers and only functioning as local interest protections.

For instance, in 1999, according to legal enterprise product standards, the bran muck produced by Qingfeng Chemical Plant, Suixi County, Guangdong Province was investigated and treated when selling in Qinzhou City, Gangxi Province. All of the products were confiscated and fined for the reason that the products were disagree with Gangxi mandatory local standard DB45 / 02 1995 "Semi-Organic Fertilizer". Qingfeng Chemical Plant of Suixi County and its marketing unit dissatisfied with the penalization and reported the conditions to Quality and Technology Supervision Bureau of Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province and China National Bureau of Quality and Technology Supervision for many times to request verdicts.

In recent years, due to the air quality issue, some cities have formulated urban coal-utilization standard and emission limit standard for pollutants. These standards have been exercising active functions in improving air quality. But there also exist such phenomena that some products meet the national or professional standard requirements while fall short of local standard requirements.

On the aspect of automobile gasoline, local standards have been issued in many provinces. For instance, some province (Jilin) requires making use of ethanol gasoline, and those supporting gas stations must be changed into ethanol gasoline filling stations. Some cities (Jinan) require that a kind of drop compound must be added into gasoline for the convenience of exhaust gas examination. These measures have objectively established technical barriers to the gasoline outside the home area.

(6）Some local standards ought to be formulated as one item, but are separated into several items, which causes inconvenience of application.

Some local standards originally could be established and issued as one single standard, whereas they were formulated into a series of standards resulting in excessive quantities of local standards and much inconvenience occurs when the users look up and adopt those standards.

Currently, regulatory standards of agricultural technique in China have been exercised wonderful functions in the promotion of agricultural techniques. Thus, it is necessary for this type of local standards to be formulated with pertinency and operability. When some large seeds distribution companies in the world are selling crop seeds, the instruction books or technical documents attached simultaneously provide planting requirements and specifications of such kind of seeds. They are equivalent to certain contents in professional or local standards of China. The standardizing objects of this kind of local or professional standards shall be made unique as much as possible. Furthermore, relevant requirements and specifications on the same variety shall be integrated into one standard. Current standards on technical specifications for production of China not only include many varieties of crops, furthermore, relevant requirements and specifications on the same variety are formulated into several standards. For instance, eight standards have been formulated to navel oranges produced in Xinfeng, which have caused a lot of inconvenience. If those standards were formulated by taking crops varieties as principal line, and such eight standards from DB36/T190-95 to DB36/T197-95, which include variety, technical specifications for rearing of seeding, technical specifications for cultivation, picking, grading, packaging, storing and freshness preservation and so forth were merged into one single Xinfeng navel orange standard, not only the quantity of standards might be reduced, but also the standard applications would be more convenient.

2. Problems in basic systems of national technical standards

The basic system of national technical standards should be able to cover all of the areas concerning social economy and livings of China. As a system integration of various standards, the basic system of national technical standard shall be characterized by clear structure, functional coordination and appropriate regional distributions. However, many defects can be found in the basic system of current national technical standard in terms of the above requirements.

(1) The defects of areas covered

Take vehicles for example again, there are a large number of vehicle standards especially automobile standards, which specify the indices of exhaust in terms of environment protection. But there lack of standards for vehicle fuel consumptions. And it results in some automobile enterprises consider nothing but their manufacturing cost when import technologies. And the direct consequence is that vehicle gas consumption per one hundred kilometers is much higher than that of developed countries by 10％ to 20％ and tremendous energy waste occurs as well.

②national standards in some areas are in urgent need of adjustment.

For Instance, in developed countries, standards are comparatively stressed on such areas as "medicine and hygiene(11),"environmental protection and health security ( 13), "mechanical system and standard parts （21）", "fluid system and standard parts（23)", "machinofacture（25）", "electric engineering（29）" and "telecommunication（33）". Whereas less in "agriculture（65）", "food technology（67）", "chemical engineering technique（71）", "mining and its products（73）", "metallurgy（77）"and "devitroceram industry（81）"and so forth. Contrary with developed countries, standards in China are stressed on such areas as "agriculture（65）", "food technology （67）", "chemical engineering technique（71）", " mining and its products（73）",“metallurgy（77）", " pyroceramic industry（81）" and so forth, which account for 28% of the total number. However, they only account for 9.8% in Germany, and 13.6% in France. Although it agrees with the actual situation of China’s economic development in the past period, however, with the gradual transition process of becoming a modern industrialized countries and the third large investment country in the world and the third large trading nation, the above mentioned areas are in urgent need of adjustment.

③The quantity of national standards in basic areas has to be further enhanced and improved.

The first main type of standards of ICS involving “synthesis, terminology, standardization and documentation” serves as the foundation for all of the standardization efforts. However, there exist a large gap between the quantity of China's technical standards and that of western developed countries. For instance, in Germany, the standard ratio in the first main type of ICS is 5.8%, France 4.4%, whereas in China, it's only 1.7%. (see figure 1.7）

Figure 1.7 Relative ratio redistribution of national standards in different countries

(2) The defects of the structure

From the perspective of system structure, the system of current national technical standards mainly have the following several areas of problems.

① Redundant technical standard layer structures result in overlap of scope of application and difficulty of coordination. The system of current national technical standard consists of such four layer structures as national, professional, local and enterprise. Due to overlaps existed in the scope of application in the technical standards involving the above four layer structures, above all, it disagrees with the “simplification principle” of technical standard system structure. Secondly, because the simplification, unification, coordination and optimization of system structure are embodied by means of the "effectiveness" principle, however, redundant layer structure settings in current national technical standard system objectively deteriorate the coordination problems between standards in various layers. Therefore, from the perspective of system structure, the incoordinations or even collisions occurred between national standard and professional or local standard, professional standard and local or enterprise standard are derived from redundant and miscellaneous settings to layer structures of technical standard, and overlaps of application scope as well.

② The ill-defined system structure and ambiguity of classification offer opportunities for splitting standards at will. There are such evident phenomena existed in current national technical standard system, i.e. the contents originally ought to belong to one holistic standard are formulated and divided into a series of standards. 比For instance, statistic analysis via China national standard database indicate that the splitting problems involving method standards（altogether 7,814 items）, product standards（altogether 5,018 items）and basic standards （altogether 2,798 items）are conspicuous. There are mainly the following several manifestations on standard random splitting:

—— when adopt some international standards, it is split into several standards or several parts of one standard. According to statistics, there are 1,008 items of national standards involving repetitive adoptions of 394 items of international standards. For instance, with respect to the three items of ISO standards concerning chemical reagent, China has gone so far as to establish as many as 197 items of national standard.

——the standards on different components or parts of the same standardization object are artificially split into several separate standards.

——when make use of different methods to conduct analysis/ measure/test to the same standardization object or the same composition/performance, the relevant standards are compiled into different standards.

——when make use of the same method to conduct analysis/ measure/ test to the same standardization object but with different composition/performance, or by use of a set of equipment and procedures can simultaneously measure different kinds of composition/performance desired, but are separately compiled into several standards.

——the distribution operations of national standard number to the same type of standards are disorder and random.

——the analysis/measure/test to the same standardization objects but different composition/performance, the standards are established into different standards.

(3) Functional coordination defects in basic system

In the basic system of current national technical standards, some specific areas lack of relevant standards, which results in functional coordination defects in the basic systems. For instance, in some areas, product standard specifies test indices, whereas there is no standard for testing method, or there are standards for testing methods but in absence of test indices specified by product standards. Or for the purpose of sectional interests, relevant parties only hanker after repetitive formulations on product standards and inspection standards, but nobody cares to make inquires on those basic standards for supporting and general-purpose even for many years. Thus, this by the root results in functional coordination defects in the basic system.

(Ⅲ) Root of the problems

The causes of the above problems in the basic system of China's current technical standard are extensive, which include both subjective and objective aspect, both administrative and technical aspect. These problems are complicated, difficult to deal with and interweaving together. And they all together restrict the development of China's standardization undertakings. And after deep investigations, it is found that its roots are showing in the following several aspects:

1.The cognitions on standards as well as their functions have mistakes and the notion on standard is in urgent need of being transformed

In the planned economy period, standards serve as technical means to organize and manage productions by the government, which all the time stresses that the primarily function of standard is to be used to organize productions of enterprises. For a long time, owing to such operational mode as government playing the leading role in technical standard administrations, the technical standards are just considered as the government's business by God's truth. The majority of enterprises in China follows such thinking inertia and pattern of behaviors on technical standards, i.e. “Government shall run the whole show” and thinks that the efforts to formulate and modify technical standards have few relationships with enterprises, saying nothing of such standard formulation mode as featured by enterprise taking the lead. Many enterprises have misconceptions on standard: firstly, they reckon national standard as "an undesirable control", and take it for granted that running their business in accordance with standards maybe jeopardize their benefits. Furthermore, they do not convince that standards are the essence and summary of advanced technologies and industry experiences, nor do they realize that the benefits of sharpening their competitive edge may be acquired when implement standards; secondly, they recon on national standards as a kind of "talisman" and take it for granted that achieving the technology indices specified by national standard means everything is just fine, without realizing that national standards only specify the most basic requirements, their core competitive strengths are only embodied by genuine high level index in terms of material products and superior performance as well as achieving indices of enterprise standard; thirdly, they ignore the seriousness while executing standards, such conduction as producing without standards is prohibited by many times but it never ceases, which not only impairs consumers' interests, but also influences international trade operations.

2. The law and statute can not adapt to the demand of market economy

The "Standardization law of People's Republic of China” was issued in 1988, the purpose of legislation is to "develop socialist commodity economy, promote technological advancement, improve quality of products, enhance socioeconomic performance, protect national and people's interests so as to accommodate the demands of socialist modernization and the improvement of foreign economic relations... " ，In consideration of the absence of socialist market economy concept in China at that time, it is impossible that the law could reflect the inherent law and requirements of market economy, nor possessed any possibilities to satisfy the requirements of international trade after China's entry to WTO.

Despite the specific contents, only from the perspective of time that the administrative statutes were issued in relation to standardization, among current 20 standardization administrative statutes (include regulatory documents), there are 11 statutes established prior to 1992,whcih account for 55% of the total number. What's more, such statute with core position for standardization as "Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China" and its "Enforcement Statutes" are included above as well. From another aspect, it indicates that, the law and statute systems of China standardization have been dropped behind the development of socialist market economy as well as the principle requirements of international trade established by WTO. Especially they can not satisfy the standard requirements in lawful documents of WTO/TBT.

3．Rigidity of the management mode

The standardization management system of China still follows the old operational mode in the planned economy period, which exercises management in divisions according to administrative regions and sections and combining centralized management with divided administration.

Its characteristics are as follows: relevant departments at all levels in government function as administrative agencies, scientific research academies and institutes,, colleges and universities, inspection agencies and enterprises serve as supporting institutions, various specialized standardization technical committees（ hereafter referred to as "Standardization Committee") serve as organization forms.This kind of management mode can not exert enterprise's functions as a principal part in the standardization efforts. Meanwhile, it has the following two problems:

Firstly, management on standardization by different departments and their duties are ambiguous. Based on "Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China”, China has some administrative departments responsible for national standardization and quite a few of departments in charge of professional standardizations. Both national standards and professional standards are applicable in the whole country and issued by the government departments. From the perspective of the standards users (domestic and foreign users), these standards are all embodied the national will. Therefore, actually there are quite a few of departments in charge of the standardizations in China. And the administrative operations conducted by different government departments results in authority overlaps and duty ambiguities.

Secondly, the duties on administration are crossing and each department insists on their sectional interests. The management span between industry and industry, industry and local, local and local is always overlapping or crossing. With respect to the same standardization object, the above situation results in constant contradictions and repetitions in the concrete contents between industry standards and industry standards, industry standards and local standards, local standards and local standards. And this makes technical standards fall into a kind of protection form of sectional and local interests. At the same time, it increases administrative costs and responds slowly to the market demands.

4. The operational mechanism drops behind

According to the problems existed in the key links during the process of formulating and modifying standards, we can see that the operational mechanisms of China standardization can not ensure the equity, justice, transparency and unanimous negotiation.

(1) Project establishment

The repetitive items in the national standard projects make the whole efforts lack of scientificalness and result in administrative difficulties and outlay wastes when conduct those projects.

Table 1.5 Example 1 for repetitive projects

Project number

Project name

Standard adopted

321-024-1995

Principle and technology of controlled atmosphere storage for fruit and vegetable

ISO 6949

422-122-2000

Specification of controlled atmosphere storage for fruit

20020391-T-424

Rules and technology of controlled atmosphere storage for fruit and vegetable

ISO 6949:1988

20020674-T-494

Fruit and vegetable--- technical specification for controlled atmosphere storage

ISO 6949:1998

Table 1.6 Example 2 for repetitive projects

Project number

Project name

Standard adopted

422-098-1993

Distribution statistics of books, newspapers, periodicals and E-journals

ISO 9707

422-074-1994

Distribution statistics of books, newspapers and periodicals and E-journals

ISO 9707

422-083-2000

Publication and distribution statistics of books, newspapers, periodicals and E-journals

ISO 9707:1991

20020646-T-469

Information and documentation operations--- production and distribution statistics of books, newspapers, periodicals and E-journals

ISO 9707:1991

(2) Comment solicitations

Because the comment solicitation operations lack of strict rules on the procedures, it is can not ensure all of the relevant parties to fully air their opinions. It is concretely embodied as follows: ①intentionally ignore departments and units with different opinions; ②refuse adopting rational comments or suggestions without any reasons; ③skip the comment solicitation stage with out any reasons；④the range of comment solicitation is too narrow, and the units and representatives are not relevant parties concerning the interests of the standards.

(3) Investigations and examinations

Besides the same defects as opinion solicitations, because of the defects in the system designing to joint deliberations and letter-checkups, it is inevitable for the inequities occur in the examination itself and investigation opinion handlings. It is specifically shown as follows: ①standard examination and investigation meetings are held perfunctorily or superficially. There are only a small number of experts and representatives participating in the meetings. So it lacks of representativeness and authoritativeness; ② the memorandums of the examination investigation meetings become formalistic, i.e., ambiguously write down the modification opinions or the coordination conditions to the standards,etc.

(4) Approval and promulgation

Due to the miscellaneous examination and approval procedures during the process of standard operations, operating efficiency of the standards is rather low. Take the report and approval process of some standard for example: if the standard has finished the draft applying for approval, firstly, chairman of technical committee for standardization shall affix his (her) signature to indicate responsibility, secondly, the leader of the secretariat subordinated unit shall sign again, then summit to the industry department concerned, after the leader of the department concerned sign, again report to China national examination department of standard technology, after the examination, lastly, report to the National Standard Committee to be approved and issued. Some standards even have to wait for one year to be issued The responsibility for standard maintenance i