【英语中国】世界贸易组织批评中国出口限制

China's extensive restrictions on its own exports are doing more to distort global commerce than its supposed goals of protecting the environment and balancing the country's trade, according to the World Trade Organisation.

In its biennial review of Beijing's trade policy, the WTO's criticism ventured on to the politically sensitive area of export curbs, the subject of ongoing trade disputes with China's largest trading partners.

“China's export barriers have not been falling at the same pace as its import barriers,” the WTO report said. “It still uses various export restrictions, including prohibitions, licensing, quotas, taxes, and less-than-full VAT rebates.”

The report said Beijing claimed these restrictions were aimed at environmental goals by reducing the export of energy-intensive and other environmentally destructive goods, and at reducing China's huge trade surplus. But it said the effect of the restrictions was merely to help Chinese companies by driving down the price of raw materials used as industrial inputs.

“Export restraints for whatever reason tend to reduce export volumes of the targeted products and divert supplies to the domestic market, leading to a downward pressure on the domestic prices of these products,” the WTO said. “The resulting gap between domestic prices and world prices constitutes implicit assistance to domestic downstream processors of the targeted products.”

The US and the European Union have a WTO case pending against China for the use of export restraints on a variety of raw materials, including bauxite, silicon metal and coke, which they say are contrary to the commitments China made when joining the WTO. Yesterday the EU seized on the WTO report as vindication of its criticism.

“The secretariat's report has clearly articulated the real rationale behind this restrictive policy and the major problems it implies,” said John Clarke, head of the EU's delegation to the WTO. “The EU considers it is high time for China, as a global economic power able to compete without these crutches, to free its exports from unreasonable restrictions.”

The WTO said China could implement direct taxes on the production of raw materials if it wanted to protect the environment.

据世界贸易组织(WTO)表示，中国对其出口的大量限制，更多的是扭曲了全球贸易，而没有达到理论上保护环境和平衡本国贸易的目的。

在两年一次的中国贸易政策评估中，WTO的批评延伸至出口限制这一政治上敏感的领域。在这一问题上，中国与其最大的贸易伙伴持续存在贸易纠纷。

WTO在报告中表示：“中国降低出口壁垒的速度，不及该国降低进口壁垒的速度。该国仍使用各种出口限制手段，包括禁令、许可证、配额、税收、以及增值税的非全额退税。”

报告表示，北京方面声称，这些限制旨在减少能源密集型及其它破坏环境的商品的出口，以保护环境，并降低中国巨大的贸易顺差。但报告表示，这些限制的效果只是有助于中国公司压低用作工业投入的原材料价格。

“无论出于何种理由，出口限制往往会减少目标产品的出口量，将供应转向国内市场，对这些产品的国内价格构成下行压力，”WTO报告表示。“由此产生的国内价格与国际价格之间的价差，对目标产品的国内下游加工商构成了隐性补助。”

美国和欧盟已就中国对铝钒土、金属硅和焦炭等多种原材料使用出口限制，向WTO提交申诉。它们称，这些限制违反了中国加入WTO时的承诺。昨日，欧盟援引WTO的报告来证明自己的批评有道理。

欧盟驻WTO事务代办约翰•克拉克(John Clarke)表示：“秘书处的报告清楚地说明了这种限制性政策背后的真正逻辑，及其蕴含的主要问题。欧盟认为，作为一个无需这些拐杖也有能力竞争的全球经济大国，目前是中国让其出口摆脱这些不合理限制的时候了。”

WTO表示，若想保护环境，中国可以直接对原材料生产征税。

译者/何黎