Call for Comments: China’s Product Quality Law – 2023 Revision

Submit comments by November 18, 2023

The Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) released the Law of Product Quality (Draft for Public Comments) on October 18, 2023. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) encourages members and other U.S. stakeholders to review the announcement and, if appropriate, submit comments following the instructions on the SAMR website (in Chinese) before the deadline of Saturday, November 18, 2023 (Beijing local time/UTC+8).

This law was originally published on February 22, 1993, with minor revisions in 2000, 2009, and 2018. Compared to the current version, the draft for comment includes some major changes, reflecting the evolving market demands to regulate new business models and accommodate consumer requirements, such as e-commerce, online third-party platforms, services providers, product recall and supply chain tracking system, etc.

The draft law has six chapters: 1) general provisions, 2) product quality obligations for operators (producers, sellers, and other operators), 3) project quality supervision, 4) quality promotion and quality infrastructure, 5) legal liabilities, and 6) supplementary provisions. It also addresses the central government’s encouragement for active participation in international quality activities, co-development, sharing, and interconnection of quality infrastructure such as metrology, standards, certification and accreditation, and inspection and testing, as well as other international exchanges and cooperation.

From ANSI’s initial review, some of the highlights in this draft include:

• Added quality requirements for imported products, such as labeling and safety requirements
• Additional obligations for all stakeholders, including quality and safety accident reporting, defective product recalling, and full supply chain traceability, etc.
• A new section for “other operators” mandating their quality obligations and liabilities, which include product storage and transportation operators, online and offline third-party platform service providers, and service industry operators
• Differentiation between “special consumer goods” from “general products” in the Quality Supervision chapter, where the state shall implement stricter supervision, standard requirements, safety assessment, and inspection over products used by special groups such as children, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly, and the disabled. The catalogues of special consumer goods shall be determined and published by the market supervision and administration department of the State Council in conjunction with other relevant departments.
• A new chapter on Quality Promotion and Quality Infrastructure (Chapter 4), encouraging relevant stakeholders to conduct basic and advanced research on quality technology, comparing and analyzing domestic and international standards on core technologies, cultivating talents, and developing relevant regulatory and procurement support by all levels of government

Read the full text of the draft law and comment submission instructions in Chinese.

Read the English translation of the full text by ANSI for members’ reference only (member login required).