The Taipei and Kaohsiung city governments yesterday warned the public against bringing in contact lenses and cosmetic products from abroad and selling them online domestically, with violators facing fines of up to millions of New Taiwan dollars.
The Taipei Department of Health said that pharmaceutical items or medical equipment brought from abroad should be for personal use only, and the quantities of approved pharmaceuticals or medical equipment should be within reasonable limits.
Based on the Key Guidelines for Personal Medicine Importation (入境旅客攜帶自用藥物限量表), people can only bring in: 12 bottles, boxes, jars, or strips of one type of non-prescription medicine, with the cumulative total capped at 36; 12 types of reagents or ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine, with the total not exceeding 1kg; and 12 bottles of one type of traditional Chinese medicine, with the combined total capped at 36 bottles.
Photo: Tsai Kai-heng, Taipei Times
Contact lenses are considered Category 2 medical equipment, and people can bring in no more than 60 pieces of one brand of the same prescription or up to two prescriptions, the department said.
Bandages are also limited to 60 pieces, it said.
Items bought by travelers abroad cannot be sold on Shopee, Facebook, Line or other shopping platforms, it said.
Sale of medical equipment without a license is punishable by a fine of up to NT$1 million (US$31,676), it said.
Separately, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said that it had investigated and confirmed 63 counts of the sale of illegally imported cosmetics, resulting in fines totaling NT$995,000 last year.
Some people sell these cosmetics online after “finding out that they had bought too much abroad,” but such an act is in contravention of the Cosmetic Hygiene and Safety Act (化妝品衛生安全管理法), it said.
The department added that by law, ampoules cannot be used as containers for cosmetic items, and people wishing to purchase ampoules to hold cosmetics for personal use must first fill out a cosmetic goods importation agreement application form from the Food and Drug Administration.
Ampoules imported in this manner cannot be used to sell cosmetic items, it added.
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