Medical equipment and protective gear being exported by China to help other nations fight the Coronavirus pandemic is being scrutinised for being substandard and not of optimum quality.?
To make it right, Chinese authorities have started cracking down on the producers of such equipment and in the process, has confiscated over 89 million poor quality face masks.
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The update was provided by Ms Gan Lin, deputy director of the State Administration of Market Regulation on Sunday at a press conference. As per Lin, nearly 16 million businesses were inspected by China's market regulators by Friday. The inspection had led to the seizure of over 89 million masks and 418,000 units of protective gear.
In addition to the two protective equipment mostly used by medical workers, regulators had also seized ineffective disinfectants worth over 7.6 million yuan (Rs 8.18 crore) as per Lin. Note that not all of the stock was bound for export.
To date, several nations have complained about faulty and ineffective masks and protective gear imported from China, with some even returning the equipment to the country upon quality rejection.
Countries including Canada, Spain, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Turkey have been a part of this, with complaints ranging from the masks failing to meet optimum standards for use by medical professionals to having faulty part like filters and borders.
There is no set defect in the masks or the other equipment. Different batches of masks have been criticised for different issues.
The lot received by Netherlands, for instance, did not fit the wearer properly. Even their filters did not work as intended. Another problem was highlighted in the test kits received by Spain and Turkey, with both the countries casting aside a considerable portion of the import. Even Australia found fault with Chinese personal protective equipment (PPE) products.
China has responded to the claims. The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the testing kits were made by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, a company which did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products.
It maintained that the material donated by the Chinese government to other countries did not include products from Shenzhen Bioeasy adhered to the international standards.
The problem, hence, lies in the production chain in practice in China. As per a report by LA Times, it is common for Chinese export companies to source their products from local manufacturers, to the effect that traceability down the supply chain cannot be guaranteed.
As a result, medical product exporters are able to get away with counterfeit or substandard goods despite certification requirements. Certificates can be faked, by displaying another manufacturer¡¯s name.
With the complaints pouring in, China has released new guidelines on Saturday. The new rules indicate that even the non-medical masks being exported to other countries must meet both national and international quality standards. The move is aimed to eliminate the export of poor-quality products altogether.
In addition to laying the production guidelines, China has now mandated a written declaration to be filed by the exporters. The declaration ensures that the medical products by any company meets the safety requirements of the destination country.
The move is estimated to have an impact on the 116 million plus masks produced in the country per day. Having exported more than one billion masks in 2020, China has confiscated 31.6 million faulty masks and 509,000 protective suits destined for export by mid-April. To further build on this, the country is now aiming to curb the production of such sub-standard products altogether.