China's drug watchdog on Wednesday promised to tighten
supervision over exported drugs and medical devices.
"We can see that weaknesses exist in the supervision of exports
of drugs and medical devices," said Yan Jiangying, spokeswoman of
the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) at a regular press
conference hold in Beijing on Wednesday.
China mostly depends on importing countries to examine Chinese
medicine and medical devices according to their own standards.
But things will change, Yan said, adding that the SFDA is
working hard on detailed rules to ensure high quality of drug
exports after the State Council issued special regulations on the
safety supervision and administration of food and other
products.
The regulation, issued on July 26, is aimed at intensifying the
control over producers and distributors of food, drug, medical
devices and other products related to human health.
The SFDA's set of rules will be a follow-up to the regulation,
Yan said.
Several detailed policies have been set in the regulation.
Inspection and quarantine authorities, as well as commercial and
drug supervisors, are required to establish positive and negative
records for Chinese exporters and submit the records to the media
regularly.
Exporters who provide fake quality certificates or evade quality
and quarantine inspections will be fined three times the product's
value and if the supervisors fail to work, the chief officials of
the department will be punished, according to the regulation.
Yan emphasized the item on recalling products of bad
quality.
The regulation asked manufacturers to recall its exported
products once they were found to be unqualified.
"This policy will be strictly implemented," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2007)