According to the introduction, this “Quality Improvement” campaign aims to urge enterprises to fulfill their primary responsibility for quality and safety, promote the continuous improvement of export product quality, and break foreign technical trade barriers. During the campaign, which will last until the end of this year, the Hunan Inspection and Quarantine Bureau will focus on key regions, industries, and products, provide services to import and export enterprises in the province, organize experts from across the system to explain knowledge about import and export product quality, and guide export enterprises to increase their use of preferential rules of origin policies.

    “In the post-financial crisis era, technical trade barriers are showing a frequent trend. At present, foreign technical regulations are emerging one after another, putting great pressure on China’s export products,” said a relevant official of the Hunan Inspection and Quarantine Bureau. To respond to this trend, Chinese enterprises should take precautions, proactively study and respond to foreign technical regulations, and increase research and development efforts on focal issues such as energy conservation and emission reduction, the low-carbon economy, and the green economy.

    According to statistics, Hunan’s exports got off to a good start in the first quarter of this year. The Hunan Inspection and Quarantine Bureau completed inspection of inbound and outbound goods worth US$977 million, an increase of 33.3% over the same period last year. In particular, thanks to the boost from the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area this year, the Hunan Inspection and Quarantine Bureau issued more than 5,300 certificates of origin of various types in the first three months of this year, with a certified value of US$360 million, up 19.2% and 48.5% year on year, respectively. Among them, regional preferential certificates of origin reduced tariffs by US$8.85 million for export products in destination countries.

    Under the free trade agreements already reached, export enterprises can use regional preferential certificates of origin to enable their customers to enjoy tariff concessions from importing countries at the time of import. A relevant expert from the Hunan Inspection and Quarantine Bureau said that although the results are encouraging, there is still great room and potential for Hunan’s export enterprises to use the preferential policies of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. There are still large quantities of products exported from the province to ASEAN that fail to enjoy zero-tariff treatment in destination countries because no preferential certificates of origin have been applied for. “In the future, China will participate in the building of more free trade areas, involving more and more tariff preferential policies,” the expert said, adding that how to make full use of the preferential policies of free trade areas is a lesson Hunan’s export enterprises urgently need to learn.