Safety certificate requirement for Chinese imports withdrawn

The Department of Trade Industry and Competition (dtic) has withdrawn a ministerial directive that would have required a wide range of “unregulated” goods from China to receive a mandatory certificate of compliance proving they met national safety standards before being imported into South Africa. 

The directive gazetted on 20 March was supposed to be implemented from this month (September) and targeted only goods from China – South Africa’s largest trading partner – with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) becoming involved.

Read:
Expanding SA-China economic partnerships makes sense
Temu, Shein see US sales drop in week after tariff price hikes
China-Africa trade agreement brings R3.5trn consumer market to SA

The aim, according to dtic documents, was to ensure fair trade, safety and consumer protection.

It required potentially unsafe goods, including electrical products, toys, cosmetics and firefighting equipment, to meet official South African National Standards.

It was officially withdrawn by Minister of Trade Industry and Competition Parks Tau on 22 September. 

The list of goods requiring certification in China was extensive and ranged from hair dyes and skin lightening creams to crayons and glues, non-electric camping stoves, frying pans, cash register receipts, solar panels and laminated flooring.

ADVERTISEMENT

CONTINUE READING BELOW

Importers would have been required to obtain a Certificate of Conformity before shipment to South Africa.

However, the way the scheme was to be implemented raised concerns from importers, said customs expert Clifford Evans from clearing and forwarding agent Berry and Donaldson.

The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) in collaboration with the dtic, temporarily suspended the scheme in July in a letter addressed to industry associations, retailers, exporters, importers, customs clearing agents, regulators and conformity assessment bodies.

The letter noted feedback had been received from “industry” and the WTO, while inviting further consultation.

‘You can’t isolate one country’

XA International Trade Advisors CEO Donald Mackay said: “If these standards had been equally applied to all countries, this may have been more sustainable. The problem here is they’ve [the South African government] isolated China, and that is in breach of WTO law.”

“The breach is that you can’t isolate one country over another when you implement a trade measure. The only exception is if the country in question is breaching a WTO rule, and you are therefore applying a measure to offset that.”

Evans speculated that China took offence at being “targeted” and approached the WTO saying it was unfair to be the only country singled out.

“China would have said to South Africa ‘We allow you to export to us mostly duty-free, and now you’re telling us we must verify that our products conform to your standards before we export to you and that’s not fair.’”

ADVERTISEMENT:

CONTINUE READING BELOW

From 1 May, China implemented zero tariffs on most imports from 53 African countries.

Evans said he understands concerns that some goods coming into South Africa could violate safety standards, but the way the system was to be implemented raised significant enforcement challenges.

“We would simply have blocked our ports. Anything coming out of China would have been detained and stopped.” 

Evans said the two main issues are:

There were no tariff codes, known as HS codes, for some individual items that required certificates of compliance. With the example of plush toys needing a certificate, a wide range of toys from China would have had to be detained by customs to check for the conformity certificate because there was no specific tariff code for plush toys. They were simply classified as “other toys”.
In the Prohibited and Restricted list, which controls under what conditions goods may be imported or exported, there is no provision to only detain goods from one country of origin. This means if customs was detaining a shipment of goods such as toys, it would have to be from every single country, leading to unmanageable port backlogs.

Fair trade and e-commerce

Evans noted that goods imported by a registered importer – for example, perfume – through a port may require documentation if asked for it by port health, which is not the same as if the same item is sent privately to individuals through courier from e-commerce providers in China.

“There is an issue that needs to be addressed. But how that gets done is another major problem.

“E-commerce is a huge challenge to legitimate trade, and I don’t think the customs authorities here in South Africa, or to be honest in any other country, know how to regulate e-commerce correctly.

ADVERTISEMENT:

CONTINUE READING BELOW

“I still think that there is room for goods to be regulated correctly.” 

Lower costs for consumers

Mackay says the immediate withdrawal of the directive should, on balance, have a net positive effect for South African retailers and consumers, because the required testing would have had a cost and would then inflate the price of products.

The categories of products being targeted was extensive and included non-pressure cookware and kitchen utensils, furniture and homeware, outdoor and leisure equipment, school supplies, sporting and recreational goods, candles and decorative burning, LPG accessories, internal combustion generators, gas equipment, plumbing components, water reticulation systems, building and construction materials, paper products and feminine and child hygiene products. 

A lawyer who specialises in both intellectual property and consumer protection, Janusz Luterek, said there “needed to be a balance between protecting consumers and commercial trade certainty”, noting that import orders are placed months in advance and adding onerous requirements in a short time frame can be problematic. 

The dtic had not responded to questions, including about why the WTO became involved, by the time of publication.

#Safety #certificate #requirement #Chinese #imports #withdrawn