W. CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. (Sept. 1)—It's premature to tell what a new agreement between the leading standards development organizations of the U.S. and China will mean for the tire and rubber industries, according to an official of the American Society for Testing and Materials.
ASTM and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing for standards information exchange and joint sponsoring of standards and training programs.
The agreement is internal and very general, and ASTM committee members were not consulted on it, said Daniel Smith, staff manager for ASTM Committee F09 on Tires. "It won't translate into tire companies in the U.S. opening up new markets in China," Smith said. "If anything happens, it would happen over an extended period of time."