According to Wang Yan, director of New Products Authentication Center and senior engineer of the CESI, with the date of China's WTO entry approaches, info-tech products probably will become the first group of "zero-tariff" products to enter China. In such situation, how to regulate the development of the market of info-tech products, especially the development of information technology and products in Chinese, and how to protect and carry forward the excellent national culture have become urgent problems to be settled soon. As Director Wang Yan introduced, Chinese Info-tech Products Authentication Center of the CESI is an institute approved by the State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, as well as the only organization for the evaluation of the qualification of the third party that are engaged in info-tech products authentication. To coordinate with the inspection on the influential computer operating systems conducted by the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine since September 1, the Center is carrying out the evaluating work on the products including the operating systems in Chinese. The GB18030 National Standard-2000 "augmentation of Chinese characters encoding collection for information exchanging" is the most important compulsory Chinese characters encoding standard following the GB2312-1980 and GB13000-1993, as well as one of the basic standards that demands compulsory abidance by China's computer systems. To guarantee a smooth implementation of the standard, all the PC operating systems put out or produced after September 1, 2001 must accord with the related standard of GB18030.

Products that are not in keeping with the standard will be regarded as unqualified and forbidden to be sold in the market.

(People's Daily November 5, 2001)