Products fail the test!

Recently famous brand products for sale on the high streets of Shanghai have not met the standards required by China's authorities. While this may refer to textile products on this occasion - beware; testing of leather products will only be just around the corner. Articles of clothing were bought at random and tested. Nearly 50% of the products from such brands as Dior, Armani and Ermengildo did not meet the standards required. The issues related to restricted substance chemicals (the same ones that are familiar to tanners) eg dyes and formaldehyde but issues were also discovered with poor technical performance eg light fastness. There are technical barriers to trade all over the world and this seems to be just one more. Importing products into China is difficult at the best of times but it seems logistics, distance and quality are not the only issues; now the labelling of products has been added to the list of issues that importers have to contend with. In this case the requirements deal with restricted substances, technical performance and accurate description of materials, eg is it cashmere/wool or polyester. It is not only China that maintains tough requirements, eg in Britain furniture fire retardant properties are the highest in the world. It is interesting that no Chinese labels were listed as failing the quality standards required. One wonders whether they were even tested. It is widely reported that on the streets of some Chinese cities as much as 40% of products are fake or copies. One can only wonder whether these products, if tested, would meet the requirements? One huge fake market was closed down in Shanghai as a demonstration of China recognising Brand and IP but the products are still for sale - only in different places. China labelling for products being imported into China is just another major issue for international brands but is proving hard to manage. The requirements are hard to find and once found, hard to comply with. In attempting to find the technical details for this article, only US and EU requirements were easily found on the internet. Experience in other areas of complying with local Chinese regulations has also proved difficult. Authorities refer to items that are not in the public domain or difficult to locate (published only in Chinese). The authority failing the goods in this instance does not even have an easily locatable web site. Identifying the technical requirements in the first place is difficult; ensuring compliance is doubly difficult. In the long supply chains, managed by international brands, there are many pitfalls but sadly no excuses. As usual, the worst aspect of events such as these is the bad publicity. This tale from a sister industrial sector is a wake up call for the leather sector, if this affects the textile sector - it is only a matter of time (not a long time at that) before it hits the leather sector.