Ｅｘｐｏｒｔｓ ｒｅｆｌｅｃｔ\"ｓａｆｅｔｙ ｏｆ ｐｒｏｄｕｃｔｓ\"

Most of the made-in-China products are absolutely safe，and the steady increase in exports despite the recent widespreadcriticism reflects their safety standards， a Ministry of Commerceofficial said Thursday.

China's exports rose 27.5 percent in the first half of the yearto 546.7 billion U.S. dollars， said Vice-Minister of CommerceGao Hucheng.

The export of some products including food， drugs andtoys， which have been criticized for their standards， haveincreased， too. The export of food products was up 22.2 percent，drugs 41 percent and toys 27.7 percent， according to Ministryof Commerce figures.

The increase shows \"the majority of importers， retailersand consumers (across the world) are reasonable，\" Gao said.The \"problem products\" comprise a miniscule percentage of theoverall exports from China.

For instance， toothpaste accounted for just 80 milliondollars of the total export of 970 billion dollars in 2006. Infact， the value of the toothpaste brand， allegedly containingdiethylene glycolis， exported to the U.S. was only 3.3 milliondollars.

Hence， doubting thequality of all made-in-Chinaproducts is not a \"scientific\"way of looking at things， saidSan， citing a figure releasedby Japan's Ministry of Health，Labor and Welfare that showed99.42 percent of food productsfrom China to Japan weresafe， compared to the 98.69percent of those from the U.S.and 99.38 percent from theEuropean Union.

The quality of Chineseproducts has improved greatlyin recent years， he said. Forinstance， about 94 percent ofthe vegetables grown in thecountry passed the pesticide residue tests in the first half of2007， 12 percentage points more than in 2003.

Gao gave an assurance that the overall quality of exportsis safe， and reminded domestic enterprises that improving thequality further is the only way of winning over the internationalmarket.

The problems relating to product quality and food safetyare hard to avoid totally because some enterprises are not awareof their social responsibility， San said. The problem of productsafety is much of their doing.

Government bodies are trying to minimize the effectof negative reports， and 429 enterprises have already beenpunished. Some other companies have been told to stopexporting their products.

Gao called for international cooperation to deal with foodsafety problems. \"Rebuking each other is not going to solve theproblem. Strengthening international cooperation is the onlyeffective way to solve the problem.\"

The Ministry of Commerce suggested cooperation withAPEC members as early as in 2005， and helped set up theAPEC food safety cooperation forum with Australia in 2006.

San suggested improving legal and law enforcementthrough international cooperation， as well as setting up of anemergency system to deal with quality problems.

Source: China Daily