Research On Technological Barriers And The Leaping Over Mode Under The Framework Of WTO

With China's Entry into WTO, the tariff barriers and some traditional non-tariff barriers which restrained the development of Chinese foreign trade were removed and we'd attained more free and fair trade environment. However, we are now suffering from foreign countries'technological barriers which are more ulterior, more complicated, having stronger destructive power and more difficult to deal with. Technological barriers have already turned into the biggest obstacle permanently restricts further development of China's foreigh trade. Whether we can breakthrough this obstacle is related not only to our foreign trade, but also to the whole nation's further economic development.Although the current literature provide us some achievements in the study on this issue, most of them are limited in the view of"Trade Policies"and did not put the problem into a more widen and deepen view to study, such as the domestic policies area. Moreover, few have done systimaticly study on this issue under the framework of WTO. These lead to the limitations of the countermeasures which is urgently needed in practice could not be very vigorous, systematic and workable.This dissertation has a foothold in the blind spot of the previous researches and the urgently need in reality. By carding the results of the past research from a new perspective of technological economy, starting from the WTO's regulations and combining international practice, trade policy,national policy and corperate strategy, I try to redefined WHAT is technological barriers and HOW to leap over it."Technological barriers"is a general concept. It includes technological trade measures, technical barriers to trade and Intellectual Property Rights ( IPR) barriers. Gap in technology and economic development among different nations is the basic reason for the technological barriers. The essence of the technological barriers is the competition between the two kinds of comparative advantages, which is the developed countries'technological advantage and the developing countries'cost advantage. The functions of technological barriers are trade-protection, welfare-protection and IPR-protection. In the long term, technological barriers may arouse the exporter's fervor to raise level of technology and quanlity standards, which finally can lead to leaping over of the technological barriers. WTO's framework stipulated the principle and the operating system pertinent to technological barriers and these are the powerful tools for breaking through the technological barriers.The valid management of technological barriers is a complicated systems engineering. Government acts as the main body of management and enterprises act as the main body of performing the leaping over. These are decided by the requirements of WTO rules and the characteristics of technological barriers itself. The core of the coordination mechanism between the two is the alignment of goal, the reasonal division of works, the clearly defined duty and the unhindered communication system.As the main body of management of technological barriers, government undertakes information collection, analysis and evaluation of the technological barriers, putting forward the proper countermeasures and transmitting the effective information to enterprises through early-warning mechanism system. Meanwhile, government also takes responsibility for external negotiation, establishing relevant restrictive and balance system and build favorable policy environment to lead enterprise to carry out leaping over of the technological barriers. Government can do this by the means of innovation policy, IPR protection policy, industry policy, standardization policy, foreign trade policy and so on.The enterprise is the main body of performing the leaping over of the technological barriers. The decision is made according to SWOT analysis and technological economic analysis. The fundamental path of leaping over is technology promotion which can be realized by technology introduction, innovation and standardization.The enterprise can also use compound tacitics to avoid and deal with technological barriers. It includes strategic management, IPR management, cost reduction and internationalization.For the time being, cost reduction is the most applicable tactic for China's enterprise and IPR tactic is the weakest part of our enterprises which need to be mastered as soon as possible.The role for the industrial association is to share some sensitive responsibilities of the government. It acts as the supplement of the government undertaking the duties which the government can not carry out or inconvenience to carry according to WTO's rule and international practice. In this regard, we must learn from other coutries'advanced experience, bringing industrial association's function into play as soon as possible and solving our problem in such perspectives as function faintness, stiff mechanism and slow reaction. We shall establish a civil fast reaction mechanism against technological barriers..The agricultural product is our country's traditional exporting merchandise. Also it is the representative area which suffers from technologilcal barriers the most seriously. At the end of this thesis, I use the conclusions and methods draw from the former study in theory to analyze the issue and test the conclusion.The theoretic meaning of this research lie in its new angle of view( technological economy), new mode of thinking( System Theory, Information Theory, Cybernetics ) and new method of studying(project management)on this issue. This research extends the applying realm of the technological economy theories and enriches the international trade theories as well, pushing forward the research on this issue a little bit.The realistic meaning of this research is to provide a systematic solution against technological barriers. It is useful for our government and enterprises to understand technological barriers well, to utilize it and to leap over it.