Tuesday, July 24, 2007


Jul. 24, 2007 (Xinhua News Agency delivered by Newstex) -- EU to enhance partnership with China for consumer goods safety

BEIJING, July 25 (CEIS) -- The visiting EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva voiced the hope on Tuesday to strengthen partnership with China to secure the safety of Chinese produced consumer goods exported to European market.

'We have agreed to intensify our cooperation on consumer goods safety especially enforcing a rapid alert system between the EU and China,'said Kuneva when giving a briefing to reporters after meeting with Chinese quality control officials.

'We want to solve problems together,' Kuneva said. 'It is in China and the European Union's mutual interest to boost consumer confidence in the market.'

The China-EU trade volume rose 25.3 percent to hit 272.3 billion U. S. dollars last year, with consumer goods as an important part.

According to EU figures, EU's imports from China was 135.6 billion euros in 2006. China has replaced the United States to become EU's largest import market.

However, an EU report said last year nearly half of the reported unsafe products originated from China. A large proportion of these products were toys and electrical appliances.

'The large number of alerts is a function of the massive export flows in traded goods from China to the EU, which amounted to 192 billion euro in 2006, and are growing at around 20 percent per year,' the Commissioner said.

Kuneva met with Li Changjiang, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine( AQSIQ) on Monday, and director of the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, on Tuesday morning.

Describing the dialogue as 'frank' and 'constructive', Kuneva told reporters that the Chinese side has agreed that a detailed report on prevention and follow up actions to European alerts will be submitted to the European Commission in October.

The October report will set out clearly what the Chinese authorities have done on market surveillance and their follow up actions to track down European alert notifications at source, said Kuneva.

According to the Commissioner, China and the EU have agreed to identify senior officials to cooperate closely at a high level to take forwards this work, and also agreed to step up the training seminars, exchange of officials and technical assistance.

The EU and China signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation for consumer goods safety last January, which provides the basis for bilateral cooperation in this field.

Since 2006, the EU has been relaying information to China of unsafe products of Chinese origin which were reported on the European market under an alert system.

China is endeavoring to tackle its goods safety problem in a comprehensive way.

In order to prevent goods from illegal exporters from entering the overseas markets, all exports would bear the sign 'CIQ' meaning 'China Inspection and Quarantine' on the exterior packaging from September 1 after they are inspected by the AQSIQ.

Importers would be able to trace the original producer of the food according to a code printed on the sign, and ascertain from the AQSIQ's Website whether the producer was a qualified exporter.

Praising Chinese authorities for taking serious attitude towards the goods safety, Kuneva said they will continue to provide the Chinese with specific information to track down and investigate alerts of dangerous products.

Kuneva will also visit a toy factory and the national laboratory for toy testing in Yangzhou of east China's Jiangsu province.

Newstex ID: XIN-0002-18378365


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