GB/T 26321-2010International freight forwarding business data elements (English PDF)

Foreword

This document was issued on 14 January 2011 by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China, and has been in force since 1 May 2011.

It is the first edition of this standard.

Classification: ICS 03.100.01, CCS A02.

1 Scope

GB/T 26321-2010 is the Chinese national standard on international freight forwarding business data elements, in the field of services and company organization. The /T suffix marks it as a recommended standard: it is not compulsory by itself, but it becomes binding as soon as a contract, a tender or a customer specification calls it up — which in practice is how most foreign buyers meet it. It was issued on 14 January 2011 by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China; Standardization Administration of China, and has been in force since 1 May 2011. Classification: ICS 03.100.01, CCS A02. This page is published from the official record of the standard held by the Chinese standards administration: the identification, the dates, the classification and the issuing body are taken from there. The clause text, the tables and the numeric limits are in the document itself, which is delivered complete in English translation.

2 Edition and transition

GB/T 26321-2010 is the first edition of this standard. It was issued on 14 January 2011 and has been in force since 1 May 2011.

There is no earlier edition to compare it with, so a specification that has to refer to this subject can only cite GB/T 26321-2010 itself.

The interval between issue and effect is the transition period. It exists so that producers, laboratories and buyers can requalify products, revise procedures and use up documentation before the new text becomes the one that applies. The date on this page is the official one from the record of the Standardization Administration.

3 Classification and status

GB/T 26321-2010 is classified under ICS 03.100.01, in the field of services and company organization. ICS is the International Classification for Standards, the same scheme used by ISO and by the national bodies of most countries, which is what allows a Chinese standard to be placed beside its foreign counterparts on subject rather than on number.

Its Chinese Standard Classification code is CCS A02. CCS is the domestic scheme, a letter for the sector and two digits for the subject within it, and it is the code by which the standard is filed and searched in China.

The GB/T prefix marks a recommended national standard. It is not, in itself, law: it becomes binding when a contract names it, when a regulation or a mandatory standard refers to it, or when a producer declares conformity with it. In practice that covers most of the cases in which it will be read — a purchase specification, an inspection agreement or a certification scheme.

4 Structure of the document

Chinese national standards are drafted to the rules of GB/T 1.1, which fixes the order in which a standard is set out. The document opens with a foreword recording the issuing bodies, the relationship to any previous edition and the technical committee responsible for it. Clause 1 is the scope. Clause 2 lists the normative references — the other standards that have to be applied together with this one, and without which its requirements cannot be met. Clause 3 gives the terms and definitions. The technical clauses follow: the requirements themselves, the test or measurement methods by which conformity is established, the inspection rules that say how a lot is sampled and judged, and, for a product standard, the provisions on marking, packaging, transport and storage. Annexes, normative or informative, come last.

GB/T 26321-2010 runs to 686 pages in the English translation. What is delivered is the complete document in that order: every clause, every table, every figure and every annex of the Chinese original, with the same numbering, so that a reference to a clause number in a contract or a test report points to the same place in both languages.

5 The English edition

The English edition of GB/T 26321-2010 is a full translation of the official Chinese text, not a summary, an abstract or a machine rendering left unchecked. Clause and subclause numbers, table and figure numbers and annex letters are those of the original, because they are what a specification, a purchase order or a test report cites.

Technical terms are translated against the vocabulary standards of the same field, so that a term used in GB/T 26321-2010 reads the same way as in the other Chinese standards it is used beside. Where a term has an established English form in an ISO or IEC document on the same subject, that form is used; where China's term has no foreign counterpart, it is translated literally and the Chinese is kept alongside it rather than replaced by an approximation.

Quantities, units and symbols are carried over unchanged. Chinese standards use SI, so a value in the translation is the value in the original document, not a conversion, and a limit read from the English text is the limit that will be applied by a Chinese inspection body reading the Chinese one.

This page is compiled from the official publication record: the standard number and both titles, the issuing bodies, the dates of issue and effect, the edition it replaces, and the ICS and CCS classification. The requirements, limits, tables and test conditions are in the document itself.