(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-25 20:42

China is looking to enhance cooperation with Russia in ensuring its products meet quality control standards, an official with the country's top quality watchdog said on Tuesday.

"We need to build a mechanism with Russia so that we can cooperate well on any possible problem concerning the quality of products," Wang Xin, director of the department of testing and inspection with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), told a press conference.

He noted that the vast majority of China's exports were safe and the government has stepped up inspections of food, drugs and other products in response to the concerns.

"Quality control of products is a global challenge and no country can guarantee their products are absolutely safe," he said, adding that China is looking forward to more international cooperation to promote trade and improve the quality of products.

Russia is China's eighth largest trading partner and bilateral trade has grown at an average annual rate of 28.6 percent since 1999.

According to statistics from China Customs, trade volume between China and Russia surged 38 percent to hit US$25 billion in the first seven months of 2007.

Wang predicted the bilateral trade would top US$40 billion in 2007. "With the growing trade volume, a cooperative mechanism is becoming all the more necessary," he said.

Wang said his organization has carried out extensive cooperation with its Russian counterpart and hoped both sides could know more about each other's laws, regulations and technical standards.

He said both countries are working together on a related memorandum and hoped the memorandum could be realized as soon as possible.