As China's lighting products take up a larger and larger share in the world market, it has gradually caused fear in the international market. Out of the instinct of protecting local industries, some countries and cross-regional international organizations have continuously set technical barriers and trade barriers to intercept. According to rough statistics, in recent years, there has been the European Union WEEE directive (on discarded electrical and electronic equipment directive), RoHS directive (on the prohibition of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment directive), and EUP directive (the ecodesign framework directive for energy-using products).

Chinese companies have been largely left to adapt. Up to now, no matter be illume industry or home appliance industry, do not have oneself industry standard to become international standard, and just regard international standard or international convention as oneself standard. This is the real tragedy of our manufacturing nation. We are angry that we have been raped by some 'standards', but also have to admit that there is a huge gap between us and others! According to the newspaper, at least 12 billion us dollars of mechanical and electrical products (including lighting products) in China have been rejected by the European Union due to the above 'international standards'.

Starting Aug. 13, Chinese manufacturers of all kinds of electrical appliances to the European Union will have to bear the high cost of e-waste disposal and replace existing substandard raw materials. The bill actually includes two instructions on the discarded electrical and electronic equipment directive (WEEE directive) and 'about banning the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment directive (ROHS directive), the former requires producers, importers and distributors in August 13, after must be responsible for the collection, processing of waste electrical and electronic products into the eu market, the latter requirement after July 1, 2006 the eu market of electrical and electronic products shall not contain lead, mercury, cadmium and other 6 kinds of harmful substances. These two so-called 'double green directives' undoubtedly create a huge obstacle for Chinese home appliance and lighting enterprises to enter the market of developed countries. In fact, the eu has been brewing for a long time for the implementation of the WEEE and ROHS 'double green directive', whose fundamental purpose is to strictly control the pollution of electronic consumer goods in the current severe situation. The WEEE directive is mainly for the prevention and control of electronic and electrical wastes and the reuse of these wastes. Of course, attempts to erect trade barriers for Chinese companies cannot be ruled out. According to regulations, for electronic waste from private households, eu member states should ensure that set up in August 13 to allow consumers and sellers will be returning to the system, these waste free instructions with particular emphasis on considering the densely populated countries also want to make sure that all necessary measures, the feasibility of collection, ask distributors to sell new products have a responsibility to ensure that waste can free returns to its hands on a one-to-one basis. It also specifies how much of each electrical product's raw material must be recycled.

The ROHS directive requires eu member states to ensure that new electronic products released on the market from July 1, 2006, do not contain six substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium. It is understood that the two instructions will be applied to all kinds of household appliances, information technology and telecommunications equipment, lighting equipment, toys, leisure and sports equipment, and even vending machines, ATM machines. Lu yenbo, a home appliance expert at the market economy research institute of the development research center of the state council, described the most direct impact of the eu directive on Chinese home appliance enterprises in this way: 'the implementation of these two directives will probably lead to a 10% increase in the price of home appliances exported to the eu by China, and the result of the rising cost is a decline in competitiveness compared with foreign products. China's exports of electrical products directly affected will reach us $31.7 billion, accounting for 71 percent of China's total exports to the eu. The newest statistic data that Chinese home appliance association provides also shows, at present the volume of exports of our country home appliance to eu already accounted for the 32% of total volume of exports, eu already became the biggest home appliance export market of China. Because our country home appliance enterprise pursues cost to reduce excessively for a long time, the system such as environmental protection is weak all the time, because this faces unprecedented pressure. In contrast, most foreign companies are much less affected by environmental regulations than their domestic counterparts. Lu even analyzed that in addition to the improvement of the environmental protection system, the new eu regulations do not exclude the export of related patented technologies. After all, the core technologies of European and American enterprises in the field of environmental protection are quite developed and even monopolistic. Many worry that the implementation of the directives will lead to higher costs and make Chinese companies less competitive in the market. I am not worried about this at all, but I am concerned that the supporting capacity of Chinese enterprises cannot be upgraded as a whole.

On the one hand, we don't have the awareness that we have to upgrade; On the other hand, we don't have the capacity to upgrade. These two aspects, in the face of a strong enemy, are a deadly threat! Although the eu ROHS directive is aimed at home appliance manufacturers, the six harmful substances involved are all from raw materials, so the upstream suppliers will be affected the most. In this case, the finished product enterprises will inevitably find new upstream suppliers and use raw material substitution to meet the eu's new regulations, resulting in the 'end of life' of quite a number of supporting enterprises and being eliminated.