Medical supplies are loaded onto a plane heading for Zimbabwe at Huanghua International Airport in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, May 11, 2020. China has sent a team of 12 medical experts to Zimbabwe to help with the African country's fight against COVID-19. On Monday morning, the experts from Hunan Province left Changsha, along with medical supplies donated by the provincial government, which include ventilators, nucleic acid testing kits, face masks and medical protective suits. (Xinhua/Chen Zhenhai)

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on Tuesday that exports of six types of medical supplies including face masks, gowns, test kits and ventilators should meet quality supervision requirements, and simplified customs declaration via market procurement trade is not possible, as some domestic cities including Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang Province have suspended their export channels.

"Temporarily suspending market procurement trade is for the sake of strengthening medical product export quality supervision and won't affect the exports of medical supplies through main commercial channels," MOFCOM said in a statement on its website.

Overseas companies and individuals can still purchase medical products in cities like Yiwu and file for customs declarations through general trade, it said.

Yiwu announced on Sunday that exports of these six medical products through the channel have been suspended across the country, though they can still be exported via general trade, and those not included in the six categories can still be exported through market procurement trade.

The move came as China strengthened its regulation of medical product exports to ensure quality, following foreign complaints about the quality of made-in-China medical supplies which arose amid an overseas ordering rush.

"MOFCOM will cooperate with other government agencies to continue stepping up quality supervision and expanding medical product exports in an orderly manner to better support other countries fight COVID-19," the ministry said.

A new kind of export method, market procurement trade mainly covers the exports of small quantities of products and doesn't involve products that are levied with tariffs and require inspections and quarantine. It mostly deals with small commodity exports, while general trade is more regulated and supervised, and therefore quality can be guaranteed.

To improve the internationalization of some markets, MOFCOM has been carrying out a market procurement trade pilot run in 14 cities including Yiwu and Huadu in South China's Guangdong Province since 2014.

Global Times