Major governmental departments are pushing industrial and agricultural sectors to upgrade their products and bring them in line with international technology standards.

The government is paying particular attention to production of such staples as food and health products, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced at a press conference yesterday in Beijing.

The ministry, together with its counterparts in agriculture and health as well as the State Environmental Protection Administration and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, initiated a campaign to implement technology standards among enterprises in Beijing, Shanghai and another 17 big cities, said Xu Peng, an official of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The campaign is being done hand in hand with the 12 key national scientific development projects started in 2001. The 12 projects cover such areas as electric motor vehicles, electronic administration, water-saving agriculture and commercialization of traditional Chinese medicine.

The new campaign aims to supervise the quality of the 12 projects and ensure to meet international benchmarks.

Similarly, enterprises have been encouraged to set technology standards in accordance with ISO, IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and other world-level criteria, said Xu.

Not meeting those standards has cost the country approximately US$20 billion of export losses every year in the past three years, said Fang Qing, an official of the Chinese Institute for Standardization.

Yang Sai, a researcher with the technology standards campaign, attributes this to China's relatively backward technology and lower standards.

Technology standardization will be fully introduced into the agricultural sector, as people are very concerned about food safety. Technology standardization can help farmers improve the quality of their products and boost their incomes.

The Beijing Huiyuan Juice Group Company, for example, purchases orange from Southwest China's Sichuan Province and apples from other rural areas to produce fruit juice. The company requires farmers to plant chemical and pollution-free fruits that meet its quality standards. Farmers who meet the company's standards can sell their fruit at higher prices than others, said Fang.

Another example is the textile industry. Minimizing the use of harmful dyes and raw materials in textiles is closely related to people's health.

(China Daily January 6, 2004)