China's manufacturing firms should speed up their efforts in the process of setting specific standards, suggested experts attending the on-going international equipment manufacturing expo held in Shenyang of northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Li Zhonghai, director in charge of the State Committee for Standardization, said that of the current 16,000 items of international standards, only 2 per thousand had China's participation, which means that in international competition, China can only follow the others' pace.

The Liaoning Standard Research Institute launched a survey in 21 key equipment manufacturing firms in Liaoning this year. The result shows that these firms seldom put money into the procedure of joining standard setting or doing technical upgrades with international standards.

Zhu Gaofeng, an engineering expert, said that behind the standards, there was huge profit. If a firm could transform its own standards to an internationally acknowledged standard, other companies would have to pay to use the accreditation.

Taking mobile telecommunication equipment as example, since 1994, China adopted GSM standards which were set by European companies. By 2002, China had spent 400 billion US dollars in this respect, but no more than 10 percent flew to domestic companies.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2003)