Consumer Rights Laws to Change in China

 

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

 

The China Consumers' Association has flagged sweeping changes to consumer rights laws in China.

 

The existing Consumer Rights Protection Law is now 15 years old and is due for a major revamp. Consumer issues occurring in China in recent years may have focused attention on the need to update the laws.

 

The New York times reported on serious quality issues in China in July 2007. At that time almost a fifth of of the food and consumer products checked by the Chinese quality regulator in a nationwide survey were found to be substandard or tainted.

 

Since that time there have been on-going major issues. The contamination of milk with Melamine, that killed at least six babies and sickened almost 300,000 others, made headlines the world over.

 

But as well as local quality issues, there have been notable problems with imported products: for example the halting of the importation of certain models of Renault car as well as recalls on some Mitsubishi models.

 

With China being such a dynamic, growing economy (albeit less so during the global financial crisis), it is essential that effective consumer laws are in place. Liu Junhai, the vice director of China Consumers' Association stated that the scope of consumer rights laws will be expanded to include tangible and intangible goods, cooling off provisions for consumers and a product recall system. There will also be provisions to deal with fraud in advertising.

 

The cooling off period - a time period during which consumers can change their minds about purchases - will apply to online transactions, pre-paid items and big ticket items such as cars and houses. The cooling down period and the product recall system are regarded as a strategic measures that will improve the consumer protection performance of companies operating in China.

 

It will be interesting to watch China's consumer protection laws as they continue to evolve to meet the country's growing status as a major consumer society...