With the integration of the global economy, international competition is becoming increasingly fierce. While tariff barriers and trade quotas are receding, technical barriers to trade, as a powerful non-tariff barrier with both rationality, discrimination and concealment, have objectively become a huge obstacle to China's export trade.

The tower crane (hereinafter referred to as "tower crane"), because of its particularity of high-altitude lifting operation, is classified as dangerous machinery or special equipment in different regions, and has relatively strict complexity and diversity requirements for its technical barriers to market access. Therefore, in recent years, the export of tower cranes in China has become more and more complicated in terms of procedure, time and cost to cross the barrier of international market access.

How to improve the competitiveness of tower crane export to effectively ensure the export market and promote the economic and security interests of enterprises is not only a subject facing many domestic tower crane manufacturers at present, but also needs the support of a higher level of standard system in China's tower crane industry.

Through the development of our center's international certification business, combined with the study and practice of specific projects, this paper analyzes and discusses the crux and countermeasures of tower crane technical barriers.

1. Background of international market access for tower crane

In recent years, tower crane accidents have increasingly attracted the attention of the world because of their frequent occurrence and the seriousness of their harm.

Considering the safety, health and environmental protection of the country, many government departments have tightened the market access standards for the import of tower crane products. Including more stringent restrictions, basic requirements and complex procedures. These restrictive measures provide appropriate protection for the domestic market in a reasonable way, and promote the improvement of the safety of imported tower crane products.

2. Classification of international market access for tower crane

According to the statistical analysis of tower crane accidents by relevant authorities in various countries, more than 70% of the accidents are caused by operational errors and improper safety measures.

In order to compensate, reduce or even eliminate the impact of human factors on the safety of tower cranes, countries clearly put forward higher requirements for the intrinsic safety design of tower cranes in terms of market access restrictions.

These restrictive requirements, because of the uneven development of countries, can be roughly divided into three types of market access methods according to their different national conditions and differences in product focus: application for registration, compliance with technical standards and mandatory certification of laws and regulations.

(1) Apply for registration.

It is a filing and review system, that is, the tower crane sold to the export destination country must apply to the safety, health and labor management department before being put into use, and can only be put into use after being approved for registration.

In terms of procedure effectiveness, this method emphasizes the completeness of enterprise qualification, product technical documents, and product safety devices, and focuses on the use safety of products.

(2) Technical standards meet.

It is a self-declaration mode, that is, for tower cranes sold to the destination country of export, the enterprise must self-declare that the products fully comply with the requirements of local technical standards and international standards for tower cranes.

This approach emphasizes self-discipline of enterprises, voluntary compliance of technical standards, design safety of enterprise products, and restriction by market supervision and sound legal system.

(3) Regulatory mandatory certification.

It is a type approval system, that is, according to the relevant regulations of the export destination country, the tower crane can only be sold and used in this market after passing the inspection and obtaining the certificate from its authorized certification authority. These certificates are also documents that have passed overseas inspection.

This way, from the perspective of legal constraints, forces the satisfaction of product safety. It is restricted by third-party agency certification.

3、塔機(jī)國際市場準(zhǔn)入的流程

Although more and more attention is paid to the safety of tower cranes, and the access to the international market of tower crane products is increasingly demanding, the imbalance of economic development among countries determines that the systems and models of countries are different due to the economic differences in the access to the tower crane market.

In these different systems and models, we can find their similarities in the process. In general, its main process can be summarized into the following five steps:

(1) First of all, clarify the administrative departments of the export destination country for the import and security of tower cranes, consult with them to confirm the access procedures, and submit a formal application according to the requirements.

(2) Specify the requirements of the export destination country for the certification method of tower crane products, whether the certification authority must be authorized, and the specific certificates and report types and names required;

(3) Specify the technical requirements of the export destination country for the certification and testing of tower crane products, as well as the main technical regulations and standards to be implemented；