Industry News
China’s home-grown automotive regulation plans worry EU and US
22nd June 2006
As President Bush visits EU leaders in Vienna this week, the Wall Street Journal reports that China’s regulatory projects in the automotive and other sectors are concerning companies and officials in both the EU and US, which have continuing difficulties in harmonising their own technical regulations.
“We must try to avoid China creating its own technical regulations, and the Americans share our anxieties on this score”, according to Reinhard Schulte-Braucks, the director of the EC’s automotive regulation unit. One matter of concern to European tyre producers, for example, is a Chinese plan to require an extra item of information to be moulded on tyre walls, which would necessitate manufacturers to produce new moulds, at a cost of ‘millions of euros’ for each tyre maker.
Another source of worry is the possibility that China will institute its own crash repair tests.
(Wall St Journal, 21 June)
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