China vs. India - trade policies and practices

Since its last Trade Policy Review in 2006, China has continued to gradually liberalise its trade and trade-related policies, while eliminating tariff-rate quotas on some items and reducing the number of lines subject to automatic imports licensing requirements.

For China, the tariff is still the most important trade policy instrument. The country maintains in 2007 the average applied MFN tariff at its value from 2005 of 9.7 percent. A reduction has been observed to the non-tariff barriers. At the same time, China’s institutional and procedural framework on contingency measures remained roughly the same.
Measures have been adopted in order to increase the alignment of the country’s national standards within international norms. Even though the Law on Government Procurement states that goods may be purchased from foreigners only under exceptional circumstances, procurement from foreign suppliers happens very often in China for some products.