Dear Mr. Osama Saraya,

I noticed that the Al-Ahram published a big-size advertisement by some national porcelain companies on its September 23rd version. We must point out that the accusing of China's products containing materials that are harmful to human health and forbidden in use, which is claimed in the advertisement are seriously inaccurate, biased, and unjustified. In view of the important status and influence of Al-Ahram, I feel obliged to take this opportunity to make clarification in this regard in order to help Egyptian public have an accurate idea of the overall quality of Chinese products and the current situation of Sino-Egyptian bilateral trade ties.

China was the third largest exporter in the world with total export of 969 billion US dollars in 2006, which shows that Chinese products are welcome globally. The merchandise "Made in China", with high quality and lower price, has been playing an important role in reducing global manufacturing cost and optimizing resource allocation.

Chinese government has always attached high importance to the product quality, including the exported merchandise. Through years of efforts, China has now established a complete set of regulations regarding quality supervision and inspection and law enforcement mechanism, together with a sound quality criterion system. Meanwhile, it has also been strengthening its efforts to enforce the laws and the supervision, and accordingly the overall quality of the exported products by China is satisfactory. According to statistics, above 99% of the goods exported to US, European Union and Japan are in line with international standards from 2004 to the first half of 2007. As far as the food products, Japan, as China's largest importer of food products, praises the Chinese food products as enjoying the highest qualification ratio of 99.42%, higher than that imported from US and European Union, in its official report of food inspection and supervision. This sufficiently demonstrates Chinese exports are fairly reliable.

Chinese government never denies the existence of the quality problems with individual cases, and settles them in line with the principle of "being practical, realistic and responsible". Like any other country, China has to face the problems in the product quality and food safety. Even if there is only 1% of possibility of problems, Chinese government, together with Chinese enterprises, will pay 100 percent attention. If it is proved that the products are faulty and the relative Chinese company is to blame, the Chinese government shall never hesitate to deal with it in accordance with law.

We welcome and appreciate the objective and neutral reports by some media on the quality problems of Chinese exports, which help us discover problems and then improve. However, there are some reports by some media, especially western ones, maliciously bespattering the products "Made in China", whose hidden intent should be pondered upon. Under the circumstance of rapid development of economic globalization, it is regrettable that some nations, regardless of mutual benefits from trade, still cast suspicious eyes on Chinese product quality ungroundedly, and attempt to set up all types of obstacles to blockade Chinese products. All these are, in essence, new versions of trade protectionism.

The problems of product quality and food safety are common challenges to the world, not confining to a specific country. The world had witnessed many serious cases in product quality and food safety in recent years. According to a declaration released by WHO, it receives 200 reports on food safety from 193 member countries every month. We believe, condemning each other in these regards will go nowhere toward solving the problems, while promoting the international cooperation shall come to meet the ends.

In recent years, Sino-Egyptian cooperation in the field of trade has shown a momentum of strong development. From January to August this year, the bilateral trade volume has reached 2.993 billion US dollars, increasing 52.8% compared to the same period last year. The bilateral trade focuses mainly on such areas as mechanical and electrical products, textile, clothes, high-tech products, marble, crude oil, cotton and steels. Porcelain trade, as a new cooperation area between the two countries in recent years, is normal enterprise-oriented business. Doing business with each other in regular and legal way will benefit enterprises and customers of both sides. As far as I know, the porcelain products exported by China, which enter Egyptian market through regular commercial channel, are in line with Egyptian inspection standards. Many of them are produced in accordance to designs and orders of Egyptian companies. These products, elegant in design, enjoying high quality with lower price, are widely welcomed by customers in Egypt. Meanwhile, there is quite a demand for Chinese porcelain products in Egyptian market.

I hope the above points can help you and Al-Ahram learn more about Chinese product quality and Sino-Egyptian trade ties. I hope that Al-Ahram can publish more articles about Chinese products objectively, so as to enhance understanding between the two peoples, further trade cooperation between two countries, and then benefit the two peoples.

I will highly appreciate it if you publish this letter in Al-Ahram. I will continue to keep in touch with Al-Ahram, and work with it to maintain and further development of Sino-Egyptian relations.

Best regards,

 

                                                                                      Gong Yufeng

                                                                                      Spokesman

                                                                              Chinese Embassy in Egypt