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Sept. 9, 2006: According to the statistics released by the Shenzhen Customs, the Chinese city's export of electric and electronic products to the EU market in July 2006 - the first month after the RoHS directive was in place - totaled US$1.07 billion, which was 5.2 percentage points lower than where the growth rate was in July last year.Meanwhile, the city's July export of machinery and equipment to the EU sharply fell 9.8% on a yearly basis.Exporters in Guangxi, a province in southwest China, have also felt the chill, as the region's total exports of electric and electronic equipment to the EU in July this year decreased year-on-year by 8.8% to US$3.82 million. Compared to the previous month, an even greater drop of 24.1% was seen. In addition, the export prices of some product items were lowered by up to 30%.Industrial veterans in the country attribute the weakness mainly to the EU's enforcement of the RoHS (Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substance in Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which is a European law that bans the use of lead, mercury, chromium and several other substances in electric and electronic equipment sold in the EU. They forecast that these EU policies on environmental protection are likely to hit China's exports of electric equipment in the next two years.Some mainland exporters have expressed fear that China's exports to the EuP, a new directive on the eco-design of Energy-using Products, will further be dampened. By implementing the directive, the EU will request relevant firms to improve the energy efficiency of their products to reduce emission of greenhouse gas.  --Excerpted from: Yeung, Patrick, “EU environmental directives hit Chinese electric equipment exports”, machine.2456.com, Sept. 9, 2006, http://machine.2456.com/eng/feature/printed.asp?fsid=2210