Xi: China strives to improve products, services

President Xi Jinping said China will strive to provide the world with better products and services in a congratulatory letter to the China Quality Conference, which opened on Friday in Shanghai.

In the letter, Xi said he hoped attendees from different countries would share their insights on international trends and experiences in quality management.

First held in Beijing three years ago, the two-day conference aims to promote quality cooperation.

"Thousands of years ago, Chinese quality goods including silk and porcelain went to the global stage, which facilitated exchanges between civilizations," Xi said. "China pays high attention to quality and will strive to provide the world with better products and services."

Quality authorities in China have made great efforts in quality supervision in recent years and have established mechanisms for cooperation and exchanges with more than 100 countries and regions, with 1,366 agreements of cooperation signed, said Zhi Shuping, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China's top quality watchdog.

In the past five years, Chinese exit-entry inspection and quarantine authorities have approved the importation of 2,186 kinds of quality foods from 178 countries and regions, he said at the conference.

Watchdogs also have continued to battle violations of the law involving quality in the past five years and punished more than 23,000 production enterprises. Authorities have used recalls of defective goods to improve quality on the market. Last year alone more than 11 million cars with quality and safety risks were recalled on the Chinese mainland, Zhi said.

Guo Chongqing, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, who attended the conference, suggested that authorities make use of the latest technological developments to promote quality of products and services in China.

"Internet technologies can be better applied in healthcare services so patients do not have to go to big hospitals and wait in long lines each time a prescription is needed for chronic diseases," he said.

According to an outline released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council on Tuesday, government at all levels in China is urged to make the "utmost efforts" to improve all products and services in China, so that the overall quality of products and services will be improved to a great extent by 2020.