With the continuous improvement of domestic automobile manufacturing level and product market competitiveness, China's automobile export has shown a good momentum of development.

In 2023, China's automobile exports reached 5.221 million, an increase of 57.4%, ranking first in the world for the first time. Next, how to further consolidate the advantages of China's automobile export is related to the healthy development of the automobile market. In the long term, the key to excellent automobile export performance is to create an open and tolerant automobile export environment and break the key barriers to automobile export.

Yao Lei, deputy director of the certification supervision and Management Department of the General Administration of Market Regulation, publicly said recently that it will promote international mutual recognition work with greater efforts to help China's automobile exports. What is the important role of market regulators in this process? What specific measures will be introduced? Shanghai Xietong Group conducted an investigation.

International mutual recognition is an important part.

Data from the China Automobile Circulation Association show that from January to September this year, China's automobile exports exceeded 4 million, an increase of nearly 30%, maintaining a good momentum of development.

Affected by this factor, the export performance of a number of independent brands has been outstanding, and many car companies have exported more than 500,000 vehicles.

In fact, the key to automobile export sales performance is not only product competitiveness, but more importantly, to meet the local product certification requirements of the exporting country and get the "access card".

It is understood that many overseas markets often have different certification requirements for imported vehicles, vehicles exported to the EU market must obtain E-Mark certification, enter the Russian market must obtain OTTC certification, international mutual recognition work is particularly important.

In recent years, China has continued to promote international cooperation in China quality certification, helping overseas enterprises to achieve "one certificate in hand and go global". It is reported that at present, China has fully established a bilateral cooperation and mutual recognition mechanism, and a comprehensive and multi-level international cooperation pattern for quality certification has basically taken shape.

According to the statistics of the General Administration of Market Regulation, up to now, China has joined 21 certification and accreditation international organizations, signed 15 multilateral mutual recognition agreements and 128 bilateral cooperation mutual recognition arrangements, and the scope of international mutual recognition covers more than 95% of the global economic aggregate.

Specific to the automobile market, relevant policies have also begun to land frequently. In December 2023, nine departments, including the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Market Regulation, jointly issued the Opinions on Supporting the Healthy Development of New Energy Vehicle Trade Cooperation, which clearly proposed a total of 18 policies and measures in six aspects, including creating a good trade environment and optimizing trade promotion activities, to promote the construction of a fair, stable, inclusive and convenient automobile trade environment.

Among them, the General Administration of Market Supervision is mainly responsible for promoting the internationalization of standards and mutual recognition of conformity assessment; Actively participate in the development of international standards in the field of new energy vehicles and power batteries; Promote the coordination and docking of domestic and foreign standards in areas such as new energy vehicles, charging facilities and power batteries; Carry out flexible and pragmatic multilateral and bilateral cooperation on mutual recognition of conformity assessment.

The relevant testing and inspection agencies and industry organizations in the automotive industry also rely on their own platform advantages to cooperate with key export national testing and certification bodies. Recently, the National special vehicle in-vehicle device product quality inspection and testing center through the China National Accreditation Commission for Conformity Assessment CNAS and CMA on-site review, inspection and testing results can be in a number of countries and regions in the world (the two sides signed a mutual recognition agreement MRA) recognized institutions to achieve mutual recognition of results.

Chen Zhigao of Shanghai Xetong Group said: "In recent years, China has more actively participated in the formulation of international regulations, especially in the fields of new energy vehicle standards and vehicle working conditions standards, and further promoted the international mutual recognition of automotive products by participating in the revision and release of global technical regulations, and by establishing a product carbon footprint management system and the interface mechanism with the international carbon emission reduction system."

The standard system is still to be perfected

"China's automobile globalization pace is late, in recent years, a large scale to the international market, Chinese enterprises overseas layout and technology export has just begun." When talking about the difficulties in the development of automobile exports, Chen Zhigao said that the formulation of relevant standards for automobile exports is crucial.

As China's automobile export enters a new historical stage, the pace of international mutual recognition continues to accelerate, and the ensuing problems are gradually exposed.

Xia Guoqiang, director of the standard Certification center of China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., LTD., said that in the face of overseas market demand, the key to automobile enterprises going out is the basic support of policy standards, and the key to improving the efficiency of automobile exports in the future is the unification of the standard system.

Yan Jinghui said that improving the standard system is to break the main barriers to automobile exports, in order to help automobile exports, how to make domestic standards and international standards convergence mutual recognition is undoubtedly a big challenge.

"As the global awareness of environmental protection increases, the new energy vehicle industry is facing unprecedented environmental challenges." Huang Yuxin, vice president of transportation services at TUV Rheinland Greater China, said that cars in the intelligent and connected field have many new features, and the EU regulations that need to be adapted are also constantly updated. The second edition of Europe's General Safety Regulations has frequently introduced a number of new regulations on intelligence and driver assistance in the past two years, including intelligent speed assistance systems, driver fatigue prevention systems, and requirements for network security and software upgrades. "Instead of just testing for products, there are now more systematic solutions to achieve compliance, but also sustainable development, which brings new challenges." "Huang Yuxin said.

In addition, in the establishment of relevant standards of carbon footprint management, China still has a gap with international standards.

To this end, in June this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the General Administration of Market Supervision and other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan on the establishment of carbon footprint management system", the main task is the General Administration of Market supervision to lead the research and development of product carbon identification certification management methods, clear the scope of application, logo style, certification process, management requirements. Study and formulate product carbon footprint certification catalogue and implementation rules, and establish product carbon identification certification system.

To facilitate the export of automobiles

"Promoting international mutual recognition can expand the international competitiveness of Chinese automobile companies, improve the quality of automobile products, enhance the recognition of the international market, have a profound impact on the expansion of Chinese automobile exports, and is a strong guarantee for Chinese automobiles to go to the world." Sun Hao said that promoting international mutual recognition of automotive product inspection and testing can effectively reduce trade barriers and help Chinese cars go to sea.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers has previously said publicly that China's domestic standards for automobiles are not unified with international standards, which has largely pushed up the cost of China's export enterprises.

Taking E-Mark certification as an example, its one-time costs include testing costs, announcement costs and other aspects, which vary according to product specifications and implementation countries. It is reported that if only one model of a specification is E-Mark certified, the sample test cost is generally about 15,000 euros, and the announcement cost is about 10,000 euros.

Through the mutual recognition mechanism of international standard testing and certification, it can promote mutual recognition of new energy among countries, reduce the testing link of repeated certification, and reduce the cost of enterprise certification. It is understood that through the means of mutual recognition of international cooperation, enterprises will shorten the certification cycle of relevant products by nearly half, saving 80,000 to 100,000 yuan per product.

In order to promote international mutual recognition work, Sun Hao said that the General Administration of Market Supervision will strengthen the multi-level international mutual recognition cooperation mode of automotive products, support automobile enterprises to actively participate in the construction of the standard system of export countries and exchange and cooperation, and support the establishment of international certification alliances in the automotive field. Promote multilateral and bilateral mutual recognition of automotive products, support cooperation between domestic agencies and key export countries' testing and certification bodies, and promote better access to the local market for Chinese automotive products.

Chen Zhigao said that under the guidance of policies, car companies are committed to improving the quality and performance of products, ensuring that products meet international standards and consumer demand, actively participating in the construction of international standards system, and creating a good market environment for China's automobile exports.