A number of government departments are working on a white paper covering the development of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, which will make keeping track of products easier.

Zhang Zhiwen, an official from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), said yesterday at the third China International EPC/RFID Summit in Beijing that MOST and the other 13 government departments have finished a draft of the white paper on RFID technology policies.

"The biggest difficulty for the development and deployment of RFID in China is that we do not have a system," said Zhang.

Many government agencies work on different plans and standards, so there is a pressing need for a coherent national strategy.

Zhang declined to reveal details of the policies outlined in the white paper.

RFID is a wireless technology that allows producers and suppliers to trace their products through wireless and integrated circuit technologies, and thus increase the efficiency of their logistics. Tags can hold much richer information than the standard bar code found on the vast majority of products.

With its importance to logistics, retailing and manufacturing industries, and the potentially huge future consumption of electronic tags and chips, RFID has grabbed global attention.

The world's top retailing company Wal-Mart requires its top 100 suppliers to put RFID tags on pallets.

The United States giant procures more than US$100 billion of goods from China, so its decision has aroused a lot of interest domestically.

Cui Zhongfu, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission, said the government and enterprises should closely watch whether multinationals and international organizations follow suit.

He added China should also quicken its pace as it strives to come up with a national RFID standard, to protect the country's economic interests and national security.

However, the radio frequency technology faces a large obstacle -- lack of bandwidth.

The internationally dominant 860-960 megahertz band has been set aside for telecommunications, radio broadcasting and aerospace uses in China.

Chang Ruoting, an official at the radio administration under the Ministry of Information Industry, said his administration has started a check of frequency usage of the 860-960 megahertz band, but there is no set completion date.

(China Daily June 23, 2005)