The American National Standards Institute and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, along with the Standardization Administration of China, recently launched a new online portal to simplify trade between the United States and China.

Designed primarily for industry stakeholders and policy officials, the Standards Portal contains dual-language (Mandarin and English) educational materials on the structure, history and operation of the U.S. and Chinese standards systems, a database of 2,000 standards considered vital to successful trade between the two nations, and access to nearly 300,000 other national, regional, and international standards and guidelines.

ANSI and NIST report that surveys conducted by the U.S.-China Business Council in 2005 and 2006 show that standardization issues rank sixth in the top 10 concerns of U.S. companies doing business in China. The agencies note that products from China and Hong Kong make up 44 percent of the total consumer recalls issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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