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BIZCHINA / Top Biz News

China set to improve goods reports to EU

By Andrew London and Zhu Zhe (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-25 09:18

China has agreed to provide the European Union with detailed quarterly
reports to prove it is dealing with complaints about potentially
dangerous consumer product exports.

Europe, the country's top export market, has been rattled by a series of
defective product alerts that have strained consumer confidence.

Visiting European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva
yesterday urged China to take stronger action against companies making
defective or unsafe products.

European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva listens to
a question during a news conference in Beijing yesterday. Reuters

The commissioner's talks with Chinese officials in recent days have also
covered food safety.

China has taken steps to restore international confidence in its products
by closing in on suppliers of substandard food and other products, the
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
(AQSIQ) has said.

However, Kuneva said more needs to be done and that even a 1 percent
product defect rate was not good enough.

"All goods coming onto the European market will be treated the same," she
said.

About half of the defective goods exported to Europe originated from
China, the commissioner said.

Kuneva said she had had a "frank and constructive" dialogue with Chinese
authorities, including AQSIQ Minister Li Chiangjiang.

The EU wants China's first report on "prevention and follow-up actions"
to European alerts about unsafe exports by October, ahead of a meeting
the following month between EU President Jose Manuel Barroso and Premier
Wen Jiabao.

The EU said Chinese authorities had privileged access to its RAPEX rapid
alert system, enabling them to track the source of a problematic product
through the supply chain.

A 2006 agreement between the two sides stated that China would provide
quarterly progress reports on the results of its investigations into
defective product alerts.

However, the two reports issued so far have not been up to standard,
Kuneva said.

"The first report was very poor in respect of tracking down. The second
was better but still not sufficient," she said.

Wang Xin, the director of the supervision and inspection department of
the AQISQ said that although China had already handed reports over to the
EU, it would "streamline" the process to make them more standardized and
detailed.

Li previously said no country in the world could guarantee 100 percent
food safety, though China would "squarely face the problems and enhance
supervision, especially over small food processing plants".

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