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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Press release9 November 2012Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

China-Europe: Information on standards and market requirements

Different sets of technical regulations, divergent standards and different market access requirements create barriers to trade between China and Europe. To overcome this problem, the new CESIP platform provides detailed information about European and Chinese standards and market access requirements. CESIP currently covers three sectors; machinery, electrical appliances and medical devices while five new sectors will follow soon: textiles, toys, aerosol cans, packaging and energy efficiency of buildings.

Mr Daniel Calleja, Director-General of European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry, and Mr Cheng Gang, Administrator of SAC (Standardisation Administration of China) launched CESIP in Beijing on 24 October 2012.

CESIP provides a bird's eye view of the different national approaches, detailed guides per product groups and references to standards used for compliance certification schemes. CESIP's objective is to make market access information readily accessible, need for SMEs to make time-intensive searches for information.

CESIP is unique compared to other web-based information sources:

  • it is the first time that market access information covers Chinese industry standards, these are highly important for compliance assessment but extremely difficult to identify,
  • market access information is structured according to product groups
  • all information is bilingual, in English and Mandarin, and regularly updated
  • a feed-back function sends users' suggestions to the CESIP team.

Some key data

  • CESIP provides — free of charge — market access information for electrical equipment, medical devices, machinery and environmental protection.
  • Over 4 500 European Standards, 3 000 Chinese National Standards and 16 000 Chinese Industry Sector Standards are referenced. Transparent classification by international product codes (ICS) helps SMEs easily identify standards relevant for their business sector.

The respective standards are made available thanks to close co-operation between the European (CEN, CENELEC) and Chinese Standardisation (SAC) Organisations.

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