Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators expressed concern on Monday that shoddy goods from China will flood the Taiwanese market after the two sides sign an agreement this week on product inspection.
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said that China’s product inspection mechanism lacked credibility and that a bilateral agreement on industrial product standards, inspection and certification would allow unacceptable Chinese products to flow into Taiwan.
SAVE TIME, MONEY
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said the agreement on cross-strait industrial product standards inspection and certification would cut time and costs and would benefit Taiwanese companies that export their products to China.
However, Chen said the agreement would also allow Chinese products to enter Taiwan, which she said are of poor quality, citing a recent report by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission saying that between June and last month a total of 66 Chinese products, including baby strollers, cribs and toys, were listed as unacceptable.
Moreover, in the past two months, 24 Chinese products, including erasers, children clothes and sports shoes, were also identified by the EU as substandard, she said.
UNRESOLVED ISSUES
DPP Legislator Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) said that while Taiwan and China have signed agreements on fighting crime, expanding cooperation on food safety issues, communicable disease reporting and other matters, several crime and food safety issues have yet to be resolved.
Su was referring to the fact that some white-collar criminals, including Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪), former head of the Tuntex Group, are still hiding in China and that no provisions have been made to compensate Taiwanese victims of the melamine-tainted milk powder scare that occurred in China last year.
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