A senior United Nations official is predicting an imminent trade boom between its procurement agencies and Chinese producers.

Gamel-M. Ahmed, UN resident coordinator in China, said Sunday that the country could make a much greater contribution to the UN, especially through providing goods and services.

"The rapidly improving quality standard of the products and services of Chinese suppliers, and the increasingly prevailing international trading rules and practices are opening a big window for business interaction with the UN," Ahmed said.

He said UN procurement in China would focus on agricultural, information technology and medical products.

According to the UN 2002 statistical report, the overall procurement volume of UN agencies was US$4.559 billion, of which, US$1.878 billion came from developing countries.

Though UN procurement from China has more than doubled in recent years, valued at US$32.6 million in 2002, it represents 0.71 percent of its total procurement.

However, UN agencies have bought a lot of China-made products through foreign markets, due to the lack of knowledge and unavailability of business channels for Chinese enterprises to sell directly to the UN.

It was shame for China, the sixth largest trader in the world, to contribute less than one percent of UN procurement, said Yi Xiaozhun, Chinese assistant minister of commerce.

He vowed that China would consolidate and expand direct exports to UN agencies.

UN agencies could decrease their purchase costs and Chinese manufacturers could increase economic technological exchanges and make a greater contribution to world peace and development.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2003)