Beijing to address EU product fears
Thursday, 26 July 2007
Mure Dickie, FT Syndicatuion Services
BEIJING: China has promised to respond regularly and in detail to European complaints about potentially dangerous exported products after previously failing to live up to a commitment to do so, the EU's consumer safety chief has said.
On a visit to China, Meglena Kuneva, the European commissioner for consumer protection, said last Tuesday Beijing had pledged to provide the next such report on its follow-up actions to European Union safety alerts by October.
The timing, shortly before a Sino-European summit in November, meant the report would have an important "political context", she said.
Ms Kuneva's trip to Beijing comes amid widespread concern about the potential dangers of Chinese exports sparked by a series of safety scares involving products ranging from pet food to toothpaste and toys.
The commissioner said that China had not lived up to a 2006 agreement on co-operation on non-food product safety that gave Beijing access to information from the EU's Rapid Alert System, known as Rapex.
Under the agreement, China is supposed to give detailed quarterly reports on action to investigate and deal with the producers of exports hit by Rapex alerts. However, Ms Kuneva said only two of the three reports due so far had been provided and that they had not been "executed properly".
Beijing had now promised to provide the third report by October and to "very strictly" follow the quarterly schedule thereafter, Ms Kuneva told journalists.
Her comments followed meetings this week with Li Changjiang, head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and other Chinese officials.
"I can see political commitment at the highest level and I will watch how this political commitment will be translated into practice," Ms Kuneva said.
China accounted for half of the alerts issued by the EU member states over dangerous consumer goods, a level that was too high, she said.
However, the commissioner has also been keen to stress that European consumer protection does not mean protectionism, and China's problems should be kept in perspective.
The proportion of Rapex alerts prompted by goods sent to the EU from China has, in fact, fallen recently despite the rapid growth in the country's exports.
Ms Kuneva has also insisted the EU could deal effectively with potentially dangerous products. "We do have a system in place and this system is operating well," she said recently.
While Chinese officials have blamed the recent export safety scare in part on what they call sensationalist foreign media reporting, Beijing is also keen to be seen to be acting to crack down on the producers of dangerous products.
BEIJING: China has promised to respond regularly and in detail to European complaints about potentially dangerous exported products after previously failing to live up to a commitment to do so, the EU's consumer safety chief has said.
On a visit to China, Meglena Kuneva, the European commissioner for consumer protection, said last Tuesday Beijing had pledged to provide the next such report on its follow-up actions to European Union safety alerts by October.
The timing, shortly before a Sino-European summit in November, meant the report would have an important "political context", she said.
Ms Kuneva's trip to Beijing comes amid widespread concern about the potential dangers of Chinese exports sparked by a series of safety scares involving products ranging from pet food to toothpaste and toys.
The commissioner said that China had not lived up to a 2006 agreement on co-operation on non-food product safety that gave Beijing access to information from the EU's Rapid Alert System, known as Rapex.
Under the agreement, China is supposed to give detailed quarterly reports on action to investigate and deal with the producers of exports hit by Rapex alerts. However, Ms Kuneva said only two of the three reports due so far had been provided and that they had not been "executed properly".
Beijing had now promised to provide the third report by October and to "very strictly" follow the quarterly schedule thereafter, Ms Kuneva told journalists.
Her comments followed meetings this week with Li Changjiang, head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and other Chinese officials.
"I can see political commitment at the highest level and I will watch how this political commitment will be translated into practice," Ms Kuneva said.
China accounted for half of the alerts issued by the EU member states over dangerous consumer goods, a level that was too high, she said.
However, the commissioner has also been keen to stress that European consumer protection does not mean protectionism, and China's problems should be kept in perspective.
The proportion of Rapex alerts prompted by goods sent to the EU from China has, in fact, fallen recently despite the rapid growth in the country's exports.
Ms Kuneva has also insisted the EU could deal effectively with potentially dangerous products. "We do have a system in place and this system is operating well," she said recently.
While Chinese officials have blamed the recent export safety scare in part on what they call sensationalist foreign media reporting, Beijing is also keen to be seen to be acting to crack down on the producers of dangerous products.