China's top quality-control official on Saturday pledged to make sure
the whole society was aware of food-quality improvement, while warning that the
country's quality supervision remains vulnerable.
Zhi Shuping, minister of the
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the
country's top quality watchdog, told China Daily along the sideline of the
twice-a-decade Party congress that despite achievements made in China's quality
control, there are challenges that can never be neglected.
Zhi's remarks reflected the
Party's political blueprint, which urged that China should quicken the creation
of a new growth model and "ensure that development is based on improved
quality and performance".
The political report, delivered
on Thursday at the congress' opening ceremony, is supposed to guide the
country's development in the next few years.
China, with its economy soaring
to be the world's second-largest and its productivity greatly lifted during the
past three decades of economic boom, has withstood various scandals over
substandard products that endangered the public's health and safety.
The Party, while calling to end
the shoddy development model, makes it clear that quality should be the focus
of the new growth pattern, Zhi said.
Zhi said that quality of
products, projects and services actually embodies the country's strength, image
and the core competitiveness of its enterprises.
China has managed to improve its
overall product quality from 75 percent 10 years ago to 90 percent in recent
years, according to figures from the quality watchdog's annual review.
But the minister warned that some
products are not reliable enough to meet international standards; manufacturers
of fake products keep updating their techniques and make supervision more
difficult; and the overall quality-control mechanism is still weak.
With made-in-China products
flooding markets both at home and abroad, several product scandals, ranging
from baby food to elevators, have hit the country in recent years.
In one instance, melamine was
added to milk products to increase the protein content. The scandal shook most
of the country's baby-formula brands and affected an estimated 300,000 infants,
left six dead and sent hundreds to the hospital, according to official
statistics.
With Chinese people getting
richer, they are paying more attention to product quality than ever before,
said Zhi.
In the latest measure to improve
quality, the State Council implemented a national-level quality-control
blueprint in February, which stressed the importance of building a strong
country with strong product quality by 2020.
The document warned that serious
economic losses due to substandard products, environmental pollution and
food-safety scandals are still prevalent. It said the issue of product quality
is vital to the country's sustainable development, the public welfare and the
nation's image.
Quality concerns sectors including
efficiency, safety, and environmental protection, and Zhi said only by
improving the quality of products, projects and services can those broader
areas be improved.
Zhi urged the whole society to
make more efforts at improving quality.
If the whole country can change
its development model and focus on quality improvement, China will develop in a
better way, he said.
Wu Jiao
Business & Investment Opportunities
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