Coronavirus: European Countries reject Chinese-made equipment

BBC ^ | 03/31/2020

[SeekAndFind]

A number of European governments have rejected Chinese-made equipment designed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

Thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective, according to authorities in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Europe has reported hundreds of thousands of cases of coronavirus.

More than 10,000 people have died in Italy since the outbreak began.

The virus was first detected in China at the end of 2019. The government implemented strict lockdown measures to bring it under control.

What’s wrong with the equipment?

On Saturday, the Dutch health ministry announced it had recalled 600,000 face masks. The equipment had arrived from a Chinese manufacturer on 21 March, and had already been distributed to front-line medical teams.

Dutch officials said that the masks did not fit and that their filters did not work as intended, even though they had a quality certificate.

"The rest of the shipment was immediately put on hold and has not been distributed,” a statement read. “Now it has been decided not to use any of this shipment.”

Spain’s government encountered similar problems with testing kits ordered from a Chinese company.

It announced it had bought hundreds of thousands of tests to combat the virus, but revealed in the following days that nearly 60,000 could not accurately determine if a patient had the virus.

The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the company behind the kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products.

[SeekAndFind]

According to the article:

“The Chinese embassy clarified that separate material donated by the Chinese government and technology and retail group Alibaba did not include products from Shenzhen Bioeasy.”

So, what does that mean? That these “separate materials” that have been donated by the Chinese Government and Alibaba are the ones that are of high quality?

[Flash Bazbeaux]

“even though they had a quality certificate.”

Kind of reminds me of the Mad Magazine cartoon where the kid fixes the “out of order” candy vending machine by removing the “out of order” sign.

[Paladin2]

Buncha ingrates.

[Paladin2]

Trust, but verify.

[redshawk]

Well today I think a plane full of Chinese crap landed in DC to help us out. ....

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Our pals.

[prophetic]

I honestly cant say that I'm surprised at all.

It seems like the world is actually waking up to saying that "MADE IN CHINA" is actually a warning label.

[chris37]

Good.

Don’t go anywhere near it.

China is going to need to get dealt with.

[catnipman]

“Thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective, according to authorities in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands. “

sounds like the PRC “donated” all of their rejects and junk ...

[yldstrk]

Figures the stuff is below standard or defective. No big surprise there.

[Aria]

China - infecting the world with low quality crap and diseases and then being converted into a world power because they early on were able to buy of some politicians.

They’re still essentially a 3rd world hell hole.

[terart]

Let me put my tin foil hat on ...

what if a country were to release a weapon that never “appears” to be a big issue until it is, infiltrates quickly and quietly while taking quite a bit of time for it’s victims to know they were attacked and blows up everyone’s economies before they knew what hit them. Then this same enemy hails itself as heroes...promising help and shipping medical supplies to countries who are counting on those items and so they do not bother producing it themselves...only to find (once it is too late) that the medical supplies they were counting on were all defective and it was too late to hold back the tide.

Oh, wait...

[oldbill]

but they’re still buying the Huawei routers and servers and 5G equipment.

[metmom]

The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the company behind the kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products.

Like that would have made any difference?

[windsorknot]

China is is Mordor; the ChiComs are Orcs.

[Zhang Fei]

The company claims user error. It’s plausible. English language instructions for a lot of Chinese companies that have only recently started exporting their products (as opposed to selling exclusively in the Chinese market) are atrocious, like they used Google Translate instead of a native English speaker with a strong command of Chinese. I can’t imagine what their Spanish language instructions are like.

They claim that these rapid test kits need to be processed a certain way. My guess is rapidly. If the users leave these things around for some other guy to record, hours later, the readings may change.

---

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-bioeasy-says-spain-faulty-covid-19-test-kits-were-not-used-correctly
[After discussions with its Spanish counterparts, Bioeasy believes that the country’s medical staff have not been strictly following directions on how to take samples, leading to a lower accuracy rate, the Shenzhen-based firm said on its WeChat account today.

“As it is a rapid test kit, following the protocol is very important,” the company added.]

[Rebelbase]

Harbor Freight will take them.

[Zhang Fei]

"The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the company behind the kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products."

Like that would have made any difference?

I suspect that's incomplete. What the embassy probably meant is that the company hasn't gotten an export license, which is what Chinese companies need to sell their products abroad. The idea is to prevent substandard products from harming the reputation of the Made in China label. While not exactly up to American or European standards, export quality products are superior to the domestic Chinese product.

A campaign launched last year to encourage Chinese food companies to bring the same production processes used for exported goods to those sold locally has attracted more than 1,500 brands.

Now more than RMB10bn (US$1.48bn) of export-quality products have been sold on the Chinese market, according to the Certification and Accreditation Administration.

The campaign has seen nearly 5,800 products, from farm produce to frozen snacks and seasonings, go to market across China since it began. The administration now hopes this number will grow significantly as the policy gathers steam.

To encourage exporters to supply the local market, the CAA has been providing them with support and guidance on how to promote domestic sales.

China has nearly 20,000 certified companies that export food and agricultural products valued at more than US$50bn to more than 180 countries each year, according to the administration.

One Gansu-based fruit juice manufacturer said that recently launched domestic sales now account for some 20% of its total business.

Previously, Longnan Changcheng only sold its products outside China, but has since found that domestic growth has outpaced its exports to overseas markets.

This is despite the higher production costs needed to maintain export standards make its product lines around 50% more expensive than those of its competitors in domestic stores.

"The overseas market has not been performing well in recent years because of the economic downturn​," operations manager Qiao Yajun told China Daily​.

"We hope our business can develop even faster in the domestic market​.”

Is an export license a must for Chinese suppliers?

November 27, 2012

Some quality control firms say to their clients: “You should book an audit on the factories you intend to work with. We’ll check if they have an export license. If they don’t, it is a bad sign because they are not authorized to export their products.”

Well, it is not so simple, as often in China. Factory audits are quite helpful in screening potential suppliers. But the absence of an export license is not such a bad sign. Most small factories don’t have that license, and they have no problem to export.

I remember asking some suppliers why another company name was written on the shipping documents. They explained that they don’t have the export license themselves, so they use an “agent” (notice the very general term) to “do the paperwork”. This agent’s work costs them about 1% of the value of the order.

This is quite common. But is it strictly speaking legal?

At the end of a previous article on freight forwarding, a reader called Callum asked this question in the comments:

A lot of Chinese suppliers do not have export permits. Instead they pay a fee to a third-party company with an export permit and in exchange they are allowed to put that company’s name on the commercial docs. I don’t know much about Chinese law, but I have a feeling this practice could be considered fraud.

To which Sandra Nguyen Thanh, from Karl Gross, responded:

In fact, in order to export products from China a supplier must either have a dedicated export permit (license) of their own or must “outsource” this process to an Import-Export company licensed to export any (non-restricted) product. The Import-Export company would accordingly appear on the export documents for the customs clearance. This is a normal procedure and totally legitimate in China.

Reasons why some suppliers prefer to use an Import-Export companies may be as follows:

1) They pay agent fee but it saves them labor cost and other costs.

2) Import-Export companies may have beneficial know-how about the market and government regulations. They are professional to settle documents and refund matters.

3) Import-Export companies have regular business so they get the tax refund faster from the government.

At the same time, there is another misconception to debunk. Some importers think the Chinese government audits factories and approves only the best ones for export. Wrong! If you are not careful, you might work with a company that is producing for the first time…

For more misconceptions about buying in China, I suggest that you go and read this article.

[Tennessee Nana]

Actually its their own fault...

They refused to buy good equipment made in America...