Nigeria is delaying the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China on the elimination of substandard products because details of the MoU did not take into consideration the aspect of quality assurance of Chinese goods coming into Nigeria.

Minister of state for Commerce and Industry, Ms Josephine Tapgun said this in Abuja when the Chinese Vice Minister of General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (QSIQS) Mr. We Chuanzhong, paid her a courtesy visit.

The Federal Government has given approval to sign a MoU with the Chinese government in relation to quality assurance in order to address the problem of substandard product imported into the country from China.

The minister said that there are technical grey areas that are not favourable to Nigeria in the negotiation, adding that the government will not sign the MOU until it addresses the grey areas.

She said that federal government was sad with the continuous flooding of sub-standard products from China into the country, adding that the trend has done much damage to the economy.

She said: "The concept of what we want is that the MoU should cover a kind of protection from the Chinese government on sub standards products coming into Nigeria. All we need to do is agree on how to dot the Ts and cross the is and once that is done, we will go into the signing because I believe that this agreement will really assist Nigeria in curbing unqualified products coming from China."

In his remark, Mr. We Chuanzhong said Nigeria and China have reached a consensus on technical details on the MoU.

He said: "Chinese is highly concerned about the product and quality problems in the trade between Nigeria and China we have a very close relationship between the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as well as the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and jointly we will make up effort to better protect the interest and safety and promote trade development between the interest and safety of the Nigerian people."