| Since China has its accession to the WTO in2001, its foreign trade has been experiencing rapid development. In2009, China’s gross foreign export value reach to$1.20166trillion, arrived the world first place for the first time. In2011, China’s trade volume reached3.641783trillion US dollars, and the year-on-year growth was22.5%. Unfortunately, with the growing importance of China in the global trading system, and as an export-oriented country, China’s export products suffer repeatedly frustration in the overseas market in recent years. China has been suffering global trade remedy investigates for16years, especially in recent years, the foreign anti-dumping investigation surge, cause increasing loss to Chinese export enterprises.Affected by the financial crisis in2008, the value of global trade significantly shrinking, the international trade frictions intensify. In order to protect the economic interests of the domestic enterprises, many countries take various trade protection policies, the expanding trade remedy measures is their outstanding features. In2010, along with the improvement of the global economy and trade environment, the strength of global trade remedy investigations shows mitigation trend. However, after the financial crisis, the growth of the world economy recovery is still facing great uncertainty, European sovereign debt crisis have not been eliminated, the economy of the United States and Japan grow weakly, and global trade protectionism is still in a relatively strong period. With the rising of China’s position in the global trading system, China is also facing the increasing international trade frictions, and the kinds of trade remedy measures.It is well known that tire industry is one of the most important industries to a country. Its importance can be summed up in three points:firstly, tire is so vital to vehicle. The quality of the tire is directly related to the overall performance of a car as well as the personal safety of owners. The statistical data shows, more than70%of the highway traffic accidents caused by tire blowout. Secondly, the development of tire industry is also critical to the National Defense of a country, that because the tire could be used to the military vehicles. Therefore, to some extent, the quality and performance of the tire will have a huge impact on the outcome of a war. Consequently, countries invest enormous human and material resources in the scientific research of national defense tire. The United States is a good example, the US Ministry of National Defense funded Harvard University$18million to develop Honeycomb Tire, which is very suitable for field march. The Pentagon also funded researchers to develop non-pneumatic tires which use compressed plastic instead of compressed air. This kind of tire can keep walking even if it is shot. Thirdly, the development of the whole tire industry is of great importance to the development of national economy. China is the largest tire manufacturer and exporter in the world, while the tire industry is an indispensable part in China’s Secondary Industry, so its contribution to the growth of GDP is obvious.China is the world’s largest producer of tires, its production accounts for about a third of the global total output, and the capacity is still growing. A survey conducted by first financial research institute entrusted by Lanxess shows, along with the world tire manufacturing center transferring to Asian market led by China, China tire manufacturing industry will still maintain a fast growth in a few years. According to incomplete statistics, China’s current tire year exports account for more than half the total output. However, since1990s, especially in recent years, China’s tire industry suffer anti-dumping investigations in succession from more than ten countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, as well as the special safeguard investigation from the United States, India. According to incomplete count, by the end of2011, China’s tire industry had suffered16trade relief cases in seven years, most of them are anti-dumping cases; one is anti-dumping and countervailing case, and two cases are special safeguard investigations. The typical cases are, South Africa Anti-dumping on China’s Tire in2005,"Double Reverse" Case of America on Chinese Off-highway Tires in2007, and Sino-US Tire Special Safeguard Case in2009. Analyzing these cases comprehensively, it is not difficult to find the three features of Chinese tire suffering foreign trade remedy measures:the first, in addition to Europe, the United States and other developed countries, many other developing emerging market countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, also take trade remedy measures on China’s tire. The second, a very wide range of tire products are involved, including truck and passenger car tires, bicycle tires, construction machinery tires. The third, each case lasted a long time, and the relevant domestic enterprises responded poorly.The reason that China’s tire encounters foreign trade remedy measures frequently can be analyzed from the following two aspects:the inside and outside market environment and tire companies’own problems. From the view of domestic and international market environment, affected by the global financial crisis, the whole world trade environment improves slowly, and the trade protectionism also rises. The trade remedy measures against Chinese tires from Europe, the United States and other major powers will have a domino effect on other countries. Nowadays many international tire corporations such as Michelin, Goodyear, set up factories in China through FDI, they occupy the high-end market and then force China’s local-manufactured tire exporting to other countries. From the view of the domestic tire enterprises, due to the cheap labor and cheap raw material in China, the price of the China’s tire is low, which is very attractive for the foreign importers. Their low-end tire products, irrational industrial structure, relatively low production technology and processes, and their negative responding when encountering investigations, are the reasons cause foreign companies setting investigation and collecting evidence easily. In addition, the political and economical relations between countries will also affect their trade relations.The lots of foreign trade remedy investigations on China’s tire cause significant negative impact on China’s domestic tire industry, the relative tire industries, China’s employment, as well as the global economy. In this case, China should have a rational view on the unfair trade environment, and use the trade dispute settlement mechanism of WTO to cope with the trade remedy investigation and trade frictions. Besides, the enterprises should also speed up industrial upgrading and product structure adjustment. In addition, the improvement of the trade friction early warning mechanism and the cooperation among government, industry associations, and corporations are also very important. When China’s tire has the international quality and the strong coping mechanism, then it will step towards a promising new development stage.From the above facts, it can be concluded that China export tire industry is in grim situation, the future development road of tire will be rugged and bumpy. Therefore, the current situation analysis of foreign trade remedy investigations on China’s tire industry, as well as the analysis and evaluation on some typical anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and special security cases, and the drawing of the corresponding lessons, are of great significance for the future export strategy formulation of the tire export enterprise and actively responding to foreign unreasonable trade remedy measures. |
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