Analysis Of ISO 9000 Certification And Its Impact On China's Foreign Trade

With the ever-increasing globalization and international competition, quality has stood out as a primary concern for nations throughout the world in their economic development. Both developed and developing countries have paid significant attention to the quality of products and services, and are making every attempt to improve it. However, due to the discrepancies in terms and languages, the varied quality standards developed by individual states can be hardly recognized universally, which has crippled the growth of international trade and in some extent resulted in a technical barrier between nations.In response to the need for quality assurance in international exchanges, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) drew on the experience of national quality assurance systems and established its ISO 9000 Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standards, which was published in 1987 and revised in 1994 and 2000. In the past ten years, ISO 9000 Standards has been adopted by more than 140 nations around the world, and greatly facilitated the free flow of goods and services among nations and helped improve the internal quality management of enterprises. On the other hand, the wide adoption of ISO 9000 standards posed a threshold for small and mid-sized enterprises in their endeavor to penetrate the international market. China published its GB/T19000 series of quality management and quality assurance standards in October 1992, equivalent to ISO 9000 series established by the International Organization for Standardization. Since its publication, the number of registered Chinese enterprises increased steadily. ISO certification has, to a large degree, propelled the growth of China's foreign trade. Having successfully entered into WTO, China now faces the question of how to bring the national quality management systems into international orbit in its national economic development. For the Chinese enterprises, having certification of ISO 9000 standards is animportant means and even a necessity to successfully enter the international arena. This thesis is to analyze the existing problems in the national registration system and put forward improvement suggestions so as to advocate a better standardization regulatory body and more competitive national enterprises.The paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter defines ISO 9000 Standards and the relevant terms, introduces the publication background and evolution stages, and predicts the future development of ISO 9000 Standards. The second chapter discusses the major contents of the 2000 edition of ISO 9000 standards and points out the improvement of the new version compared to its predecessor. The third chapter looks at the growth of ISO 9000 in various nations, thus examines it function in international trade development and the internal quality management of an enterprise, and then discusses the effect of ISO 9000 standards on developing countries as well as on small-sized enterprises. The last chapter focuses on the development progress of ISO 9000 in China, the existing problems and some suggestions on future improvement.