Posted on 11/26/2007 6:58:50 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Mandelson says China’s reputation at risk
By Reuters November 26
The top EU trade official told China on Monday its reputation was at risk after a series of product safety scandals and that it must do more to tackle the problem.
The comments drew an icy response from a senior Chinese minister.
Peter Mandelson, European Union trade commissioner, told a meeting on food safety in Beijing that a rash of recalls of toys, toothpaste and other consumer goods had shaken global confidence in China’s exports.
Beijing had to clamp down on defective goods to restore buyers’ confidence.
“While product safety is not a problem restricted to China, it will nevertheless be central to the global perception of China’s growing weight as a manufacturer,” he said. “China’s long-term success depends on its reputation.”
While labelling recent Chinese efforts to crack down a “positive first step”, he said comments by some officials that 99 per cent of China’s products were safe was not good enough.
“Europe imports half a billion euros worth of goods from China every day – so even 1 per cent is not acceptable,” Mr Mandelson said, adding he expected the European Union to make a growing number of discoveries of substandard Chinese goods.
He also tied worries about safety to wealthy nations’ other big bugbear with “made-in-China” – what he called the “tidal wave” of counterfeits.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the trade in counterfeited consumer goods has reached $200bn a year, equivalent to 2 per cent of world trade, with many fakes coming from China.
“Some of those products – fake medicines, fake car parts, fake aircraft parts – carry huge risks,” Mr Mandelson said, demanding a “clearer demonstration” that Beijing was working to stamp out counterfeiters.
Wu Yi, Chinese vice-premier, expressed unhappiness at Mr Mandelson’s remarks.
“I am extremely dissatisfied,” an angry-sounding Ms Wu told reporters after Mr Mandelson spoke. She did not elaborate.
Ms Wu, known as China’s “Iron Lady” and who has been put in charge of the product safety brief, had earlier lauded the government’s campaign to clean up the manufacturing and export sectors, and asked for greater global cooperation.
“Since the start of the year the Chinese government has taken unprecedented special action to ensure product quality and food safety,” she said.
“I sincerely hope that developed nations can offer more to developing countries to enhance their standardisation level, improve their food production technology and raise food safety.”
Ms Wu’s remarks came ahead of a China-EU summit which has been overshadowed by trade tensions.
Ping!
You can get cheap goods, and you can get quality goods, but there is no such animal as “cheap quality goods”.
China is producing what the retailers and consumers want, cheap goods.
Consumers tend to shy away from unsafe goods, however.
***unprecedented special action***
I wonder what that means...
I wonder what that means...
Maybe, fixing the problems and producing quality stuff?
Not that it's ever gonna happen.
Positioning to use trade barriers in an effort to stop the economic death of the EU. The high Euro/RMB balance (the RMB is pretty much pegged to the dollar) is killing exports to China. Germany and Italy used to export a lot to China - machinery, tools, etc - but that’s dried up now that the cost is so much higher. So they need to stem the tide of Chinese products coming in to hopefully turn some of that export into domestic consumption and keep their economies running.
Just like Brussels complaining about the high Euro/dollar valuation, this is going to be used as a basis for barriers to prop up their economies. Chinese product quality has been a LONG time issue - ever since the first factory located there. You have to have staff present to maintain quality. Complaining about it now - especially when many of the latest infractions started with self-reported incidents by the Chinese - is simply a justification to implement trade barriers to protect their dwindling manufacturers.
“Consumers tend to shy away from unsafe goods, however.”
Consumers vote with their wallets. Safety is important untill there is an increased price to pay. The reason seatbelts, airbags, and all the other nanny options are mandatory on new cars is because consumers wouldn’t pay for them when they were add on options that cost extra money.
Mike
You can have cheap, but safe goods. China is the only manufacturing giant I know of that actually intentionally spiked protein additives with toxic compounds (ie melamine and cyanuric acid) in order to command higher prices. This was not an act of carelessness or inattention to good manufacturing processes, but a fraudulent attempt to cheat customers.
I wasn’t thinking product quality control...
The facts demonstrate that few people value that assurance at zero (and even those that do ride on dogfood manufacturers valuing the safety aspect as >0).
“..told China on Monday its reputation was at risk after a series of product safety scandals..”
China has nothing to worry about. In this world of MBAs it is the bottom number on the ledger sheet that counts and as long as China can keep it low enough to prevent competition at home it will have the market cornered. And up to now, no consumers have publicly stated that they would stop byuing Chinese products.
Rubbish. Remember, you are on a forum where people actually follow the news.
Sure, as soon as you list the dogfood manufacturers who have continued to allow melamine in their product, and their sales figures.
And my point is that product safety is a consideration when the consumer votes with their wallet, and when manufacturers compete for their vote.
There's a reason Lawn Darts are only sold on E-Bay as novelty items.
“There’s a reason Lawn Darts are only sold on E-Bay as novelty items.”
They are not being sold retail because of the courts and litigation, not because consumers thought them unsafe. If they were put on sale tomorrow at WalMart, they would sell.
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