Quality key to China’s medical supply exports

When China is making its utmost efforts from guiding market players to expand production to organizing experts to set industry rules on exports of medical supplies, in order to deliver badly-needed medical goods abroad promptly, some Western media are busy faulting China, citing “quality issues.”

“There is a lot of asymmetric information or disinformation about the medical export issue according to our observation,” Meng Dongping, vice president of China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Medicine & Health Products, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.

China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Medicine & Health Products, subordinate to China’s

Ministry of Commerce, is a national industrial association in China devoted to promoting international trade and investment in the healthcare sector.

The pandemic is an unprecedented event that no country has ever experienced, and it is understandable that when the virus broke out overseas, governments and their peoples were rattled and felt unprepared. That is not conducive to orderly distribution, as well as final usage of Chinese medical exports, Meng said.

“And it is not rational to blame it all on China,” Meng noted. The quality defects covered by foreign media were the result of misuse or misunderstanding rather than fake or faulty goods, she explained.

Taking the masks exported to the Netherlands as an example, “after research, we discovered that the masks purchased by Dutch buyers from Chinese

companies were not designed for medical use. Relevant companies had made it clear in their contracts that those masks were not to be used for medical purposes or for health workers in intensive care units, yet the buyers took them for medical use,” she noted.

The Netherlands asked hospitals at the end of March to return roughly 600,000 face masks it imported from China after finding the masks failed to meet safety requirements, Dutch media reported.

Despite external chaos and rumors about medical supplies exported from China, the country adheres to its responsibility by providing medical supplies overseas without setting restrictions. It is also making further moves to tighten quality controls on these exports.

She said China has never limited its exports of medical supplies.