Chow Tai Seng insists that its pure gold jewelry have received quality certificates from state and local authorities after an exposé by CCTV 3.15 found iridium in its products, Daily Economics News reported.

Chow Tai Seng quickly responded after the television program’s exposure saying that they would carry out a full investigation into the products at the Gold Street Store in Langfang, Hebei. The company said it will shelve the 105 unsold items and recall and re-examine items that have already been sold.

Pure gold jewelry contains no less than 99.9 percent gold and is commonly known as “three nine gold”. However, the purity of some gold jewelry is not as high as what sellers publicize and is instead mixed with iridium, a metal that is of the same density as gold.

The National Jewelry Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, responsible for examining the authenticity of the products, said yesterday that the items exposed by CCTV 3.15 had never been sent to the testing centre by the company.

More test results coming from Shenzhen, Chongqing, Jinan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Harbin, Chengdu, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shanxi, Hunan, Yunnan and Guizhou show that all the products are 100 percent qualified.

“Products sold in the shop have all been through the tests of the state and local testing organizations. As for why some results failed in the re-examinations, we don’t know either,” Jia from Chow Tai Seng’s marketing department said.

The National Jewelry Quality Supervision and Inspection Center said it issued some certificates to Chow Tai Seng, but not for all the products.

The test results of the exposed products obtained from the Gold Street Store shows that the testing number is S-WT2012-0947. However, the same number available at the National Jewelry Quality Supervision and Inspection Center actually refers to a different batch of products.

The National Jewelry Quality Supervision and Inspection Center also denied that there are any differences in testing methods between the National Supervision and Inspection Center and the local testing agencies but it would only take responsibility for the test results from the center.

Insiders said that the reason Chow Tai Seng can pass every quality test has to do with the standards of testing agencies. China does not have strict rules for gold detection and the standard of gold testing is usually low.

“Gold detection is a very precise and complicated task, so there will be certain errors in different results,” Du Yanhong, a researcher in the retail industry from China Investment Securities, added.