Li Zhonghai, chief of the Standardization Administration of China, told a meeting in Beijing yesterday that China will adopt at least 2,000 such international standards each year.

In five years, up to 80 per cent of China's key industrial products should be produced in line with international standards.

The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade requires that a member's standardizing body use existing international standards as a basis for the standards it develops, Li told the country's first ever national conference on the adoption of international standards.

Li's agency promised in April this year to fully comply with the WTO "code of good practice for the preparation, adoption and application of standards."

"China has adopted 6,300 - or 38 per cent - of the existing 16,745 standards of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)," he said.

The remaining standards, if applicable, will be adopted in China within five years, Li said.

Chinese officials and experts have increasingly blamed the country's poor quality of products and slow export growth largely on a low level of standards, rather than backward equipment and technology.

China's electric tools used to be poor in terms of both quality and safety, according to Li. The situation changed when China adopted 82 per cent of the IEC standards on electric tools.

China is now the world's largest exporter and producer of such products and exported US$1.2 billion of electric tools last year, the China Electrical Appliance Industry Association said.

In fact, 43.7 per cent of China's 19,744 national standards - guo biao in Chinese and shortened to GB - published by the end of last year are based on international standards and advanced foreign standards, said sources with the Standardization Administration of China.

Li said: "China will adopt international standards - whether it be ISO, IEC, International Telecommunications Union, or Codex Alimentarius Commission standards - as soon as possible if they conform to China's actual conditions."

At yesterday's conference, State Councilor Wu Yi urged enterprises to take the initiative in adopting international standards. She said China should take an active part in formulating international standards.

A dozen standards developed by China have been already approved by the ISO or IEC as international standards, according to Li. The country should strive to get at least 50 of its standards adopted as international standards within five years, she said.

(China Daily July 27, 2002)