Worried about being stereotyped a low cost, poor quality manufacturing hub with little Intellectual Property enforcement, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang called upon Chinese industrial firms to improve the quality of their products as part of the efforts to transform China’s economic growth pattern.

Chinese enterprises should boost the quality of industrial products by upgrading their technologies and establishing a quality-based credit system of enterprises, said Zhang at a forum held in Beijing which focused on how to improve the quality and reputation of Chinese industrial products.

He also called for accelerating the establishment of industrial standardization system, actively taking part in drafting and revising of related international standards and establishing a reward and punishment system that favors firms that manufacture high-quality products. The ministry plans to reward those companies that have good records for producing quality products with increased policy and funding support, and punish those with poor quality-control records.

Over the last few years, China, dubbed a location for poor quality of products ranging from toxic toys to combustible cars and tainted milk has suffered considerable reputation damage. Having grown at more that 8 percent for the last decade, the nation is now concentrating on bettering its product quality, improving manufacturing and industrial standards, upgrading equipment and services and moving up the value chain.