The EU Has Taken A Tough Stance On Its Clothing Trade Policy.

EU Trade Commissioner Teguh Hurt proposed at the European Union Conference on the day to cancel trade concessions to the rich emerging economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil.

EU officials say the proposal will be approved by the European Council and the European Parliament, and will be implemented in 2014.

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According to the information provided by the European Union, the total value of trade concessions provided by the EU to developing countries in 2008 amounted to US $2 billion, benefiting 178 countries and regions.

However, the EU believes that this is the most important trade tool for developing countries to provide development assistance, enabling India, Brazil and Russia to achieve economic prosperity, but at the same time, it is difficult for low-level countries to benefit from it.

To this end, EU Trade Commissioner Teguh Hurt said in a meeting last month in the European Parliament that he hopes to reduce trade concessions to developing countries by half, with the aim of "giving preferential treatment to those countries that really need it".

EU officials also believe that the rise of low-level countries is not successful.

Yao Ling, a European economic research expert of the Ministry of Commerce of China, pointed out that the trade commissioner Teguh Hurt's proposal actually reflected the change of the EU's overall trade policy. The EU announced in November 2010 the new global strategy for the EU's next 5 years under the new situation. The aim is to place special emphasis on the competitiveness of trade, hoping to promote EU economic growth through trade and solve the problem of high unemployment.

Under the impact of the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, European economic growth has slowed down significantly, which has also brought about great changes in its trade policy. "The EU was formerly the pioneer of free trade, but now it emphasizes more on the reciprocity of trade and hopes that developing countries can contribute to their economic development".

Song Hong, director of the International Trade Research Institute of the Institute of world economics and politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agrees with the above statement. He also points out that the EU Trade Commissioner proposes to cancel trade concessions to newly emerging export powers, in fact, it wants to distinguish the emerging economies with larger economies, such as China, Brazil and Russia, from other developing countries.

In recent years, with the economic rise and the international status of BRICs, the developed economies such as Europe and the United States have been demanding to redefine the concept of developing countries, hoping that these export giants will make various commitments as developed countries. But although the economies of these emerging economies have reached a certain level, the per capita income level is still very low, so they must not be separated separately.

Apart from the European Union, the trade policy of the United States and Japan has also become tough after the financial crisis.

Japan's Ministry of Finance announced in 2010 that trade preferences for developing countries' commodities will be adjusted from 2011 onwards, making it more difficult for new export giants such as China to enjoy tariff preferences.

The trade target set by the US government in 2010 was double the amount of US exports in 5 years.

To this end, the United States has abused trade remedy measures and launched anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against emerging economies such as mainland China frequently. However, after the financial crisis, the United States adopted "buy American goods" and "employ Americans" and other policies and measures, which obviously violate their international commitments.

Fu Donghui, director of the Beijing branch of Jin Tian Cheng law firm, said that a large part of the EU's trade concessions to be abolished refer to the preferential policy of "generalized preferential tariff system".

According to the introduction, the "generalized preferential tariff system" is the lowest tariff system in the world. It is a universal, non discriminatory and non reciprocal tariff preferential system granted by developing countries to the developing countries to export manufactured goods and semi manufactured goods (including some primary products) under the WTO framework. The beneficiary countries can enjoy a reduction of the tariff free or most favored nation tariff rate.