BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- International retail giants Wal-mart, Carrefour and Metro have told China's Ministry of Commerce that they are satisfied with the quality of Chinese products, more than 99 percent of which meet standards, ministry spokesman Wang Xinpei said on Thursday.

The qualification rate reached 100 percent of export Chinese products purchased by U.S. firm Wal-Mart, 99.5 percent by France's Carrefour, and 99 percent by Germany's Metro. The products mainly include cleaners, hardware and household appliances, textiles, toys and food, retailer representatives said in a meeting with the ministry.

The Carrefour representative acknowledged the efforts made by Chinese government to guarantee product quality and food safety, and said it increased confidence in Chinese products.

Carrefour purchased 59 billion yuan (7.86 billion U.S. dollars) worth of products in China last year, and planned to buy more. It spent 36.2 billion yuan in the first half.

Metro's purchase, though smaller in value, grew significantly to 11.8 billion yuan in the first half, only 2.4 billion short of the amount in the entire 2006.

"We have been purchasing from China for nearly 26 years," said the Wal-Mart representative, "Chinese products are economic in price and guaranteed in quality."

Wal-mart has located its global purchasing office in China.

Around half of the purchased products would be exported, said the representatives.

 

Source: chinaview.cn

Replying to [itradeshows]:

I guess the most logical explanation for this discrepancy between the quality of products for the European market and the US market is that Chinese factories manufacture special low-quality merchandise for the US market... Sorry for my sarcasm!

No, seriously, it tells me once again that all this hype in the US media about lousy Chiese quality was nothing but a coordinated smear campain. My best guess is that is has to do with the Chinese threat of dumping all their US Treasury Bonds on the market, wiping out the US currency in the move.

There must be a terrible "war" be going on behind the curtains if the Europeans were called in to rescue the good image of Chinese products. The representatives of these companies didn't go to China just for the fun of it! And Walmart sides with China/Europe. Interesting!