Medical trade friction is normalized and foreign trade faces complicated environment

The business club reported on October 25th that the range of products involved, the country involved, and the amount involved were all expanding. Coupled with the tightening of laws and regulations on importation of pharmaceutical products by various countries, the barriers to trade in China will surely be heightened.

The 108th Canton Fair Health Insurance Exhibition was held soon after, but it once again encountered a Sino-US exchange rate war, and the external environment faced by China's pharmaceutical foreign trade is even more complicated.

“At present, the trade barriers set up by Chinese export enterprises in the international arena have risen further. They have expanded from labor-intensive enterprises to high-tech enterprises, service industries, barriers to market access, intellectual property rights, and labor protection.” Ministry of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce Commercial Counselor Su Jing pointed out to the reporter of the “Medicine Economics Daily” that in 2009 China’s export amount accounted for 9.6% of the world’s total, but the anti-dumping and countervailing investigations that it encountered accounted for 40% and 75% of the world respectively. At the same time, the United States, Europe, and some emerging countries recently Market countries have lowered their currency values, undoubtedly causing huge challenges to China’s exports.

In fact, in recent years, trade conflicts in China's pharmaceutical industry have also been further aggravated. Not only will there be trade wars with European and American countries, but many emerging market countries will also impose restrictions on Chinese-made products for the sake of safeguarding their own interests. This may cause the number of cases of trade friction between China and emerging market countries to rise significantly.

Anti-dumping influence continues to ferment

Since the financial crisis, many countries have suffered from the impact of the financial crisis, and for the sake of safeguarding the interests of their own companies, Chinese products have been restricted, especially low-end pharmaceutical products, and trade frictions have increased significantly.

According to the statistical data of the China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products (hereinafter referred to as the “Medical Insurance Association”), in 2009, the trade frictions of the Chinese medicine and health products industry were mainly concentrated on foreign anti-dumping investigations against China, and there were 4 cases initiated. The products involved were once Syringe, penicillin industrial salt, involved in the amount of 240 million US dollars, involving Argentina, India, the European Union and other countries and regions.

It is understood that more than 90% of the products of Chinese pharmaceutical products encountering foreign anti-dumping investigations were Western medicine APIs, and since Brazil and Ukraine filed anti-dumping investigations on Disposable Syringes in China in the second half of 2008, in September 2009, Argentina again The product initiated an anti-dumping investigation and the amount involved was USD 4.58 million. The reporter learned from the Legal Department of the Medical Insurance Chamber of Commerce that Argentina has decided to extend the period of anti-dumping investigations on Chinese-made disposable syringes, and will continue to conduct anti-dumping investigations in the future.

Since the beginning of this year, due to the anti-dumping investigation, China has reduced the volume of disposable syringes exported to Argentina. According to customs statistics, from January to July this year, China exported 46.54 million disposable syringes to Argentina, the export amount was 1.14 million US dollars, the amount and amount decreased by 55.14% and 54.04% respectively. On September 7, this year, Argentina decided not to take temporary anti-dumping measures against plastic Hypodermic syringes originating in China and continued the anti-dumping investigation.

In respect of western medicine, at the end of May this year, South Africa once again launched an anti-dumping sunset review on China and the United States producing paracetamol. This is the second sunset review of anti-dumping investigations launched by South Africa since 1994 on paracetamol from China, France and the United States.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, last year, the United States launched 27 cases of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy "double anti-subsidy" against China, and there are thousands of cases concerning intellectual property disputes. Since 2010, the trade protection measures taken by the United States have increased even more, and they have shown an upward trend. In addition to the “double counter” investigations and intellectual property investigations that have been used in the past, the “tire special protection case” in September last year created a dangerous precedent for the U.S. trade control against China. Some industry experts pointed out that after the “tire special protection case”, more US interest groups will demand that the government impose special tariffs on China’s exports to the United States, thus further increasing the risk of an outbreak of trade friction between China and the United States. The trade situation is bound to remain in a complex situation for a long time.

Accelerating Trade with China

Xu Ming, general director of the Medicare Chamber of Commerce, told reporters that at present, China's pharmaceutical trade appears to be suffering from product expansion from raw materials to medical devices, and the countries involved have expanded from traditional markets to emerging markets, and the amount involved has increased year by year.

According to statistics from the Medical Insurance Association, in the past, the main country for procuring pharmaceutical products was India. Since 2008, some emerging markets such as Brazil, Ukraine, and Argentina have started anti-dumping investigations on Chinese products.

From the amount involved, before 2006, the amount of the case involved was less than US$10 million. In 2006, India launched an anti-dumping investigation against penicillin industrial salt. The amount involved was 99.5 million US dollars. In 2007, India filed an anti-dumping investigation against ceftriaxone. The amount was 15.6 million U.S. dollars; in the second half of 2008, India again filed an anti-dumping investigation against penicillin industrial salt, involving a case amount of 230 million U.S. dollars, which became the largest case involving foreign anti-dumping of Chinese pharmaceutical products.

In addition, there are also signs of an increase in China’s investigation and early warning cases. In February 2009, the United States initiated 337 investigations into China's glucosamine; another 2 cases of early warning, together with Russia's investigation and early warning of one-off syringe safeguards, and another one, Indian Penicillin and 6-APA and its derivatives. Anti-dumping investigations.

At the same time, the relevant laws and regulations for importing pharmaceutical products in various countries are also being tightened and revised. The barriers to trade with China will surely be heightened.

“If the external demand market is difficult to open because of high trade barriers, some of the ever-increasing advanced production capacity may turn into excess capacity in the domestic market.” Prof. Lu Hongjun, Dean of the Shanghai Institute of International Finance, raised his worries: It is difficult for companies to invest in large amounts of money to have an ideal return, which will certainly affect the pace of further industrial upgrading.

In fact, after the United States upgraded its trade protection measures against China, the EU and some developing countries have followed suit.

It is reported that following the beginning of this year, South Korea announced that China's choline chloride sunset review, the final ruling ruled to impose anti-dumping duties of 10.28% to 27.55% for 3 years, the South Korean side also began to speed up the process of the amendment of the import drug management law. On August 16th, the Korea Food and Drug Administration notified the WTO/TBT of the proposed amendments to the Import Drug Administration Law and added the musk to the list of laboratory inspection items. In addition, the proposal stipulates that if inspection of imported materials, the inspection content must be entered into the electronic system. The proposed amendment also requires that all imported raw materials listed in the “Korean Pharmacopoeia” or “Korean Herbal Medicine” be added to the list of laboratory inspection items in the 5-year comprehensive plan.

“The trade friction between China and the United States will intensify, because the main reason for the Sino-U.S. trade friction is not whether the United States wants to increase exports or whether the RMB exchange rate is underestimated. It is the increase in the international market share of China’s commodities that poses a challenge to the original international trade pattern. The inevitable result.” Xu Ming believes that the fact that China’s trade frictions are becoming normal requires us to form a trade relief mechanism where governments, industry associations, and companies perform their duties and complement each other to prevent the proliferation of US trade protection policies. "Effective," and China must also propose effective countermeasures to effectively limit excessive investment and excess capacity resulting from this, and make internal adjustments to the industrial structure, product structure, consumption and investment structure, and regional development structure in order to change the imbalance and reduce Contradictions and pressures on the periphery.