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.
Meng recalled when the chamber of commerce received numerous phone calls and requests from overseas when the virus of COVID-19 spread globally. “People on the other end of the phone spoke very fast in anxious tones, and I could feel their yearning for help from China. They were in bad needs of medical supplies to fight the novel coronavirus.”
The COVID-19 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.
For another medical goods wildly used in the fight against the coronavirus – test kits, which countries like India and Spain had criticized China for inaccurate test results, Meng said “There are strict requirements for the storage, transportation and usage of the novel coronavirus test kits. What India purchased were antibody test kits, and testing must be carried out by professionals in accordance with product instructions, otherwise low accuracy or errors might occur.”
Some of the test kits exported to India came from Chinese companies Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics, which are key players in the Chinese biopharmaceutical industry and rank highly in export activities. They received urgent requests from India soon after the virus hit the country.
“At the very beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, many people including health professionals faced uncertainties and suffered from asymmetric information. After India realized its incorrect use of the test kits, they re-evaluated the products and put Livzon Diagnostics and Wondfo back to their supplier list again,” said Meng.
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.
Since Chinese authorities in April made a series of announcements to tighten procedures required to ship medical supplies overseas and crack down on illegal activities, rumors have arisen about alleged Chinese export restrictions, but in fact China’s medical supply exports surged after those announcements, according to Meng.
She said China has never limited its exports of medical supplies, and is implementing improved measures to ensure their quality meets the standards of other countries and regions.
The chamber at the end of April introduced a white list on its website and has been consistently updating it to include qualified Chinese medical product manufacturers.
“The list has proven popular as it provides a clear tracking for sourcing of foreign buyers,” said Meng.
To better ensure the quality of Chinese medical supply exports, and avoid the problems caused by operational errors, the Chinese government has released a new notice on April 26, adding non-medical purpose face masks, not only medical-purpose ones, to its oversight list.
Since many countries and regions have their own quality standards and oversight systems for medical supplies, the new notice requires both exporter and importer to sign a joint declaration for non-medical mask transactions to ensure quality compliance. Importers must also confirm their acceptance of the products’ quality standards and commit to not use non-medical face masks they purchased for medical purposes.
“There are still such phenomena overseas to confuse non-medical masks with ones with medical purposes,” said Meng.
“According to international trade conventions, it is the importing country that is responsible for controlling the quality of imported products. But we want to be proactive and help the international community fight the pandemic. It shows China’s emphasis on export quality and the country’s willingness to strengthen international cooperation,” she stressed.
Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said on Monday that China has exported medical products to 199 countries and regions around the world.
From March 1 to May 16, China exported medical supplies worth 134.4 billion yuan ($18.93 billion), including 50.9 billion masks, 216 million protective suits and 162 million COVID-19 test kits, data from the General Administration of Customs showed. Major destinations for these exports included the US, Germany, Japan, France and Italy, which accounted for 94 percent of China’s total exports during the period.
An airport staff member unloads Chinese medical supplies in Ljubljana, Slovenia, May 1, 2020. A cargo aircraft carrying about 12 tons of medical supplies donated by the Chinese government to Slovenia landed at the Ljubljana Joze Pucnik Airport here on Friday evening. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun)
