Since China's WTO accession the construction of agricultural standard system has long been a hot issue, drawing high attention from the society. The central committees of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (RCCK), the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party (CPWDP) and the Jiu San Society as well all tabled a proposal on this issue in the 1st session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). In this regard, subcommittee for Handling Proposals under the National Committee of the CPPCC had an informal discussion conducting on-spot consultation on Tuesday morning. The afore-mentioned three proposal parties attended the discussion together with figures with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce by invitation.

Mr. Zhang Yanqiu, deputy director-general with the department of market & economic information under the Ministry of Agriculture, held that the Chinese agriculture laid emphasis only on output while neglected safety and standard in the past. The construction of Chinese agricultural standards is still in its initial stage, therefore falling far short of the level of developed countries. Although the construction has made fairly enormous achievements in the recent two years, it has yet a long way to go in future.

According to a plan jointly formulated by ten ministers and commissions such as the Ministry of Agriculture, China will set nearly 3000 items of agricultural national standards and 9000 items of local standards in the coming three years. Sun Xiaokang put it that half of new standards will adopt international ones. "Some agricultural produce with Chinese speciality will not adopt international standards, whereas common produce will. If not, the export business of these produce will probably be adversely affected."

As learned, the SAC is vigorously conducting the construction of agricultural standard demonstration zones and has established more than 1100 demonstration projects around the country in an effort to boost the production of agricultural standards. The administration will also work out a database of agricultural standards in main importers of Chinese agricultural produce for inquiry of Chinese agricultural produce exporting enterprises.

(People's Daily June 26, 2003)