Protecting Their Market Share
In China's mad dash and fierce determination to dominate as much of the world market in exports of all manner of finished products from furniture to ceramics, from pharmaceuticals to foodstuffs, she hasn't bothered herself too much about short-cuts and substitutions some manufacturers have resorted to, to pad their bottom line. It's taken one domestic catastrophe after another, where Chinese citizens have fallen ill and many have died to convince the authorities that they're not fulfilling their proper oversight mandate.That mightn't have bothered the Chinese administration and its many departmental sector chiefs as much as the international furore that has arisen in the wake of catastrophic fall-out in consumer confidence overseas imperilling China's booming trade figures. But both combined have proven to be too much for them to continue brazening out their oversight incompetence.
The breezy assurances that most goods and comestibles coming out of China are safe, that an insubstantially minor proportion only have been implicated in manufacturer malfeasance was no longer acceptable to the international market.
The international outcry over tainted food and counterfeit pharmaceuticals has finally convinced China that if she plans to count on her rising-star status as an exporter of food and commodities she'll have to ensure her food- and drug-safety regulations meet international standards of compliance and reliability.
To that end, it appears China is preparing to introduce nationwide inspections in a strenuous effort to crack down on the sale of tainted and dangerous food and medicine.
The fact that almost a hundred people in Panama had died after using medicines containing a toxic chemical produced in China and exported with a false labelling as an innocuous ingredient went some way to alerting the world that China was being careless with her reputation and with the health of people abroad.
Recently Panama, the U.S. and Nicaragua recalled toothpaste made in China as it contained diethylene glycol.
The exported Chinese pet food ingredients that proved to be contaminated with an ingredient fatal to a large number of domestic pets in North American did nothing to burnish China's reputation as a safe and reliable source of filler products for pet food. The tainted stuff set off the largest recall of pet food in North American history in the wake of illness and death of peoples' beloved cats and dogs.
China has announced that its State Council has approved a new food- and drug-safety guarantee system, with an outline of the new programme distributed to government agencies nationwide. By 2010 new controls in food and drug imports and exports will be implemented and random testing of medicines will be stepped up. Inspection information should be available on fully 90% of all food products, according to the posting on the government web site.
Promises, promises. We've a right to be skeptical.
Labels: Political Realities, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 11, 2007
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