China bans Apple products for officials

Beijing: China has excluded Apple from a list of products that can be bought with public money because of security concerns, media reports said.

Apple products like iPad and MacBooks were omitted from a final government procurement list distributed in July. These products were on the list till June. The Apple exclusion makes it the fourth major foreign company to face hurdles in the Chinese market. China has recently told government departments to stop buying antivirus software from US firm Symantec Corp and Russian firm Kaspersky Lab. Microsoft Windows 8 was also excluded from government purchases in May this year. The iphone was saved from the ban because smartphone purchases are not included in the list.