General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ)

July 20, 2007

Chinese government attaches great importance to product quality and food safety, and the administration of quality and safety is a significant task for the protection of the interests of the country and the people, and is also the main cause for the construction of a socialist harmonious society.

Following the guideline of supervising quality from the origin, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ) conducts unified quality supervision on products, comprehensively strengthens the quality legislation and standard system construction, continuously improves the means of supervision, intensifies law enforcement, keeps a stern attitude towards sales and production of fake and defective products, and carries out special rectification nationwide every year. The general level of product quality has been raised steadily, and the situation of food safety has been improved constantly.

1. A quite good quality guarantee mechanism has been established.

First, department rules and regional laws and regulations have been enacted and improved, laying legal foundation for the quality supervision in accordance with the laws.

Second, the technical basis for quality supervision has been consolidated by means of metrology, standardization, certification and accreditation, the construction of national key labs and national quality inspection centers and so on, thus establishing a sound technical guarantee system to ensure quality and safety.

Third, improve enterprises' quality control system and help enterprises establish quality guarantee system, metrological testing system and standardization system. Production process surveillance and inspection either in the producing area or at ports have been applied in export enterprises.

Fourth, establish and perfect the systems of the catalogue of export commodities subject to statutory inspection, quality and safety market access, production license, supervision and random inspection, quality credit and so on to gradually improve the construction of supervision system on product quality and safety.

Fifth, intensify the support to good and strong enterprises by taking measures like famous brand evaluation and export exemption from inspection, nation exemption from inspection, geographical indication protection and so on to support and facilitate the development of qualified products, outstanding brands, good enterprises and preponderant industries.

Sixth, severely strike against violations and crimes of selling and producing fake products and organize regional special punishment and rectification.

Seventh, strengthen the training for quality management and technology personnel to enhance their qualifications.

Eighth, standardize product service, deepen the project of consumer right protection and popularize the system of "three guarantees".

Ninth, implement recall system on defective products. We have carried out recall on defective automobiles and defective toys with the range of recall still spreading. Tenth, mobilize people from all walks of life to join in the quality supervision. The role of social supervision including that of the press and media has been fully played, forming an integrated force of supervision.

2. A quite good food quality and safety system has been established.

At present, China has about 500,000 food manufacturers, among which about 150,000 are large and medium-sized enterprises whose products take 80 to 90 percent of the market share. The supervision agencies of the government endeavors to ensure the product quality of large and medium-sized enterprises and makes small food manufacturers and workshops under control, thus leading the supervision of food production onto a way of systemized and standardized development.

First, strictly adopt the system of quality and safety market access of food and food related products. The system covers three aspects: production license, statutory inspection and market access mark. The market access system has been applied in 525 varieties of 28 categories of food. By the end of this June, over 104,700 Food Producing Licenses had been issued to manufactures whose market share takes over 90 percent of similar food. Meanwhile, market access of 7 varieties of food related products like food package, container, facility, etc. has been conducted.

Second, comprehensively strengthen the rectification of small food manufacturers and workshops. We have conducted special rectification on 350,000 small food manufacturers and workshops, among which 16,000 workshops' production were stopped or changed, 8,158 were obliged to stop production, 4,272 workshops were integrated or merged, more than 190,000 signed the Letter of Promise on food quality and safety, and 26,726 were detected producing without license or violating relative regulations. The average qualification rate of random inspection on food produced by small workshops has been raised from 60.3 percent in 2005 to 70.4 percent in 2006.

Third, intensify national supervision and random inspection on food and food related products, and timely conduct regional and industrial rectification once problems emerge.

Fourth, implement regional supervision responsibility system on food safety. 16030 food safety supervision responsibility regions have been established throughout the country in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

Fifth, strike against illegal food manufacturers and workshops and crimes of using illegal additives. By the end of this May, the quality supervision and inspection authorities from all over the country have sent out executive staff more than 330,000 persons, have detected fake and defective food worth of about 0.2 billion yuan, and have cracked down 180 food manufacturers and workshops producing fake food products. We have also implemented the food safety improvement project to crack down on tens of thousands of illegal small workshops in thousands of townships from hundreds of key regions to intensively address the regional quality and safety issues.

Sixth, strengthen the construction of food standard system and food certification. We have formulated a medium and long term plan for food safety standards, and have cleaned up more than 10,000 national standards, industry standards and enterprise standards, have conducted revision on the existing 2,463 national standards and industry standards, and have formulated over 200 new national standards together with related departments. As for food certification, we have fundamentally established a certification and accreditation system on food and agricultural products in the whole process "from field to dining-table" in various forms as Feed Product Certification, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Certification, Non-pollution Agricultural Product Certification, Food Quality Certification (liquor), Green Market Certification, and so on. At present, the area of organic product certification has reached 2.3 million hectares ranking in the first ten countries of the world; experimental certification has been conducted in 286 export enterprises and agriculture standardization example bases in 18 pilot provinces.

Seventh, strictly supervise import and export food quality. We have fully strengthened the inspection, quarantine and supervision on import food and adopted the production and management mode of "enterprise + base + standardization" on export food and registration administration to improve the monitoring system of animal and plant diseases in raising bases and control system of pesticide and veterinary residue, thus ensuring the safety of import and export food.

3. The general level of product quality in China has been steadily improved.

The general level of product quality in China has been steadily improved, which can be seen in the following 4 aspects:

First, the quality of raw materials and equipments has been advanced to a large extent. The technical standards and actual quality of Non-Ferrous Metals and major products of petrochemical industries have reached international level. The equivalent coefficient of complete sets of equipment of power generation has been accelerated above 85 percent. The percentage of domestically-made complete sets of equipments has also risen considerably.

Second, the quality of consumer goods also improved significantly. TV sets, washing machines and home air conditioners reached international advanced level, with 50 percent of fridges exceeding EU Energy Efficiency A. The qualification ratio of sampling surveillance basic food, such as rice, flour, oil, sauce and vinegar, is 91.4 percent.

Third, the performance of hi-tech products has improved conspicuously. The major functions and performance of products, such as telecommunication network equipments, mobile communication equipments, digital audio and video and new displays, have achieved the same quality level with similar international products.

Fourth, engineering quality and service quality are also advanced significantly. The qualification ratio of general civil engineering projects is 96 percent and the qualification ratio of major national engineering projects is 100 percent. Three-Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River Project, West-To-East Natural Gas Transmission Project, South-to-North Water Transfer Project and Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project have reached or exceeded international advanced level. The service quality in business and tourism increased largely.

Food quality has been improved in with steady steps. In 2001, the qualification ratio of national sampling surveillance on food is 60.3 percent. In 2006, the ratio reached 77.9 percent. In the first half of this year, sampling surveillance was conducted over 21 categories of products, including processed grain products, meat products, dairy products, beverage, candies, wine and liquors, egg products and etc. 3931 kinds of food produced by 3362 factories were inspected, among which, 3345 kinds of food are up to standard with an average qualified ratio of 85.1 percent. Speaking of exported food, from 2004 to 2006, the annual qualified ratios of food exported to US from China are 99 percent, 99 percent, and 99.2 percent respectively; the annual qualified ratios of food exported to Japan from China are 99.9 percent, 99.9 percent and 99.8 percent respectively; the annual qualified ratios of food exported to EU from China are 99.8 percent, 99.9 percent and 99.9 percent respectively; the average qualified ratio of exported food from China exceeds 99 percent.

4. Countermeasures have been reinforced to improve product quality.

Facing the recent situation in product quality, including food quality, AQSIQ will make joint efforts with local governments at various levels and relevant departments to take effective countermeasures (as follows) and conduct severe surveillance over product quality and safety.

First, ensure product quality from the very source. To keep products up to standards, especially to make exported products follow the standards and requirements of the import country, is the focus of our work. Based on this focus, we will double our efforts in quality supervision, by establishing control systems, fulfilling responsibilities, and strengthening surveillance.

Second, strengthen inspection, quarantine, supervision and administration over import and export products. At the current stage, more efforts will be made to fully supervise import and export products, including all products which are non-listed for compulsory inspection.

Third, enhance the work in formulation and revision of food standards. The formulation and revision of 200 national standards for food safety will be completed as scheduled.

Forth, reinforce the supervision and administration on certification and accreditation and standardize certification business. Registration of food sanitation will be reinforced, and requirements will be further specified with regard to control of raw materials, food additives, production techniques, which are critical points that affect food quality, sanitation and safety.

Fifth, severely crack down on illegal activities that breach laws and regulations regarding product quality. Efforts will be increased to fight against illegal activities in this regard.

Sixth, enhance national surveillance sampling over product quality. The scope, frequency of sampling surveillance will be increased so that problems will be identified timely.

Seventh, regularize emergency management concerning product quality and safety issues. Quick response will be reinforced so that the problem will be tackled at its initial emerging stage.

Eighth, establish a long-term effective system for supervision and management of product quality and safety. A complete quality management system will be formed on the basis of government surveillance, enterprises self-discipline, market guidance and public involvement, with the main responsible role being strengthened and put on enterprises.

Ninth, responsibility for product quality safety should be truly shouldered by enterprises. Law-enforcement efforts will be doubled to fight against illegal enterprises that evade inspection, quarantine and supervision. Tenth, enhance quality information promulgation and increase international cooperation. With regard to quality issues that are reported by the media, prompt investigation will be made and the results should be revealed to the public timely. Food safety cooperation mechanism with relevant countries and regions will be established to enhance communication and exchange, and thus appropriately resolve quality issues that affect bilateral trade.

As the administration of quality inspection and supervision, AQSIQ will seriously fulfill its functions and carry out the above-mentioned work, so as to improve the level of product quality and safety in China, and greatly enhance the international competence of our domestic industries, enterprises and products.

(China Development Gateway July 20, 2007)