The Chief Asia Inspector Blog

Itchy feet...?

While contaminated milk, seafood, toothpaste, candy, pet food etc... have been raising health concerns about ingestible products made in China - other recent cases show that products in simple contact with your skin may be harmful too.

4 months ago the French furniture retailer Conforama withdrew chairs made in China from its stores because they presented an allergy risk due to presence of dimethylfumarate, a chemical substance meant to fight humidity and mold.

Last week, it was the Popular French clothing chain Etam which had to stop selling Chinese-made boots and shoes containing the same anti-fungal chemical previously blamed for causing rashes.

Seems French brands have a serious need to refocus their QC..

See the full story

The price of quality

Following a recall from 2006 (see the details from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) , Reebok has just been fined a record US$ 1 Million for their violation of the US Federal Hazardous Substances Act.

The facts are pretty well known (a 4 year old kid died of lead poisoning after swallowing a made-in-china bracelet given away by Reebok), and the manufacturer's efforts to "fix" the issue (a 500,000+ pieces recall), communicate on it and prevent it from happening again seem real.

What is interesting here is that it sets a speaking example of the cost of non-quality (US$1 M for the fine, plus the cost of the worldwide recall, plus the purchase cost of 500,000 bracelets - probably around US$ 500,000). We are talking about a financial loss for Reebok of at least US$ 2 M I believe (and I am not counting the brand image damage).

I guess it makes the relatively small investment for setting up proper quality controls in China worth it...

Quick-fire backfire

                                                  

It is debatable what the EU is trying to do by imposing quick-fire textile quotas on China, now that the restrictive Multi-Fibre Agreement is no more. According to this Guardian article, if it wanted more jobs at home, it is likely to fail.  If it was also trying to look out for its own little guys - developing countries such as Morocco and Tunisia - I would suggest that it is likely to fail in that too. Who looks like the big winner, the guy making all the sweaters now that the dragon’s claws have been ever so slightly dulled? Not the weak or vulnerable, but instead: that other racy Asian economy - India.

AsiaInspection’s tours have shot up like a lunar rocket in India: we made eight times our usual number of inspections there this year. Not that China seems to be suffering too much (at this stage); inspections there have increased threefold.

If you imagine the Asian economies are rising like dough (go on, do it just for a moment), it’s funny how if someone tries to squash a bit back into its pan, another bit puffs out somewhere else. In fact, it seems that all the EU has managed to do is irritate their own importers, retailers and inflation rates. Whoops!

La transposition de la directive RoHS en Chine

La directive RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), qui porte donc sur la restriction de certaines substances dangereuses, fait beaucoup parler d’elle en ce moment. En vigueur depuis le 1er juillet 2006, cette directive européenne vise à limiter l’utilisation de six substances dangereuses dans les équipements électriques et électroniques actuellement disponibles au sein de l’Union européenne. Seront touchés les fabricants, les vendeurs, les distributeurs, ainsi que les entreprises de recyclage des équipements électriques et électroniques (EEE).

Un article (RoHS and WEEE: It’s an Executive Problem) récemment publié sur amrresearch.com compare l’application européenne de la directive RoHS à la version chinoise de la loi. Les pays de l’Union européenne ne se sont pas clairement prononcés sur les moyens qu’ils comptaient utiliser pour contrôler la mise en conformité. Les autorités chinoises, quant à elles, ont mis en place un cadre législatif très strict rendant le respect de la directive européenne à la fois obligatoire et complexe, tout particulièrement pour les entreprises étrangères. Les sociétés qui souhaitent importer des produits en Chine devront dorénavant tenir compte de trois obstacles majeurs :    

• tout produit doit avoir obtenu un label 3C (China Compulsory Certification) pour pouvoir être vendu sur le territoire chinois ;    
• seuls seront admis les contrôles de certification effectués par des laboratoires agréés ou appartenant à l’Etat ;    
• la loi et les documents qui s’y rapportent ne sont disponibles qu’en chinois : ils ne sont pas traduits dans d’autres langues.

Je vous invite à lire cet article dans lequel vous trouverez également les noms de fournisseurs qui aident les entreprises à comprendre et à appliquer la directive RoHS en Chine.

Pour en savoir plus sur la directive RoHS :
> rohs.info
> pb-free.info

Sébastien Breteau