SAIC: "We Are Not Afraid to Ruthlessly Punish Online Suppliers of Fake Goods"

(Partial translation of article first posted on tech.qq.com.cn on 05/02/2015. For full Chinese, click here.)

SAIC Deputy Director Ma Zhengqi: "As long they are lawful, stable, accurate and resolute, as they should be, businesses will let sleeping dogs lie instead of rocking the boat."

Yesterday, Beijing Times held a video conference with the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC), whose Deputy Director Ma Zhengqi revealed that this year the SAIC will improve measures to develop sampling of the quality of online goods and promote e-commerce quality inspections. While Alibaba and SAIC have shaken hands since the outbreak of the 'war of words', which began last month after the SAIC published a report on the high incidence of fake goods on Alibaba's online shopping platform, Taobao, this meeting revealed that on-line shopping suppliers will continue to be a focal point of regulation this year.

Talking about the year ahead, Ma said that consumer rights protection will adhere to "consumer-oriented" principles of "administrative law". This year, the SAIC will develop "circulation of commodity quality supervision and management measures" and standardised procedures for sampling e-commerce commodities. It will introduce a "business-implemented 7-day no-return 'elimination' strategy" to improve consumer rights protection standards, and procedures of the rule of law.

Meanwhile, the SAIC will take the lead on sampling the quality of cell phones, clothing, children's toys, electric bicycles, electronic wires and power cables, and continue promoting the sale of quality goods at the source. Ma has also called for stricter and standardised sampling methods with a focus on system-wide, comprehensive sampling and information sharing.

Ma explained that different local enterprises have complained about the SAIC's goods sampling. However, in the future SAIC sampling will be a unified effort, though with different SAIC sectors to assess and regulate different goods. 

As for information sharing, once enough data on substandard goods in the industry has been collected, the SAIC will be able to create a national system. No further comment was made.

According to Ma these measures are being introduced in response to consumer complaints and problems with product quality sampling. Concentrating on key industries and enterprises, the SAIC will conduct interviews, urging operators to improve. 

"If the interviews are not enough, we must severely punish operators."