Unfortunately, there are still about 300 million people in China's urban population who have not yet caught up with the rapid growth of the Chinese economy. The good news for U.S. exporters however is that as long as the economic trends in China continue to improve, more and more markets will continue to open up. The bad news is that the high tariffs, technical barriers and general lack of clarity that products of major interest to U.S. exporters, such as beef, nuts, and fruit, have received only minimal reductions in tariffs despite the many promises from China that international trade will be made more cost-efficient. Quarantine barriers also officially prohibit U.S. fruit and most fresh vegetables from entering China, due to fear of fruit fly contamination. However efforts are being made to permanently remove all restrictions that cannot be scientifically justified.
China also maintains quotas on many products, but the quotas seem to be somewhat flexible.
In truth, figuring out exact quota amounts is often very difficult. Therefore, when evaluating the U.S. market position for consumer ready products, China Customs data is the only source that provides comparable China Import data for the United States and other countries. There is still however a lot of discrepancies in figures, and it is assumed that the China market is larger than indicated by U.S. and Chinese statistics. While market research is not exactly a prevalent practice in China, some evidence has shown that an American label does significantly help boost product sales. Subsequently, dishonest importers have been known to put U.S. labels on other countries' products because it makes the item sell better.