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As Barack Obama retreated from his far-fetched call for a ban of all Chinese toys (see posting from China Law Blog welcoming Obama 'back to reality'), Xinhua reported on Sunday all Chinese food enterprises will be required to have a quality safety label on their products to gain market access starting from January 1 2008. The regulation is said to fulfill China's market access labeling system which was first put into practice in 2002 but had not yet been applied to all food products. According to findings from a report about China's food quality and safety released in August, the article continued, by June some 107,000 food production licenses had been issued to enterprises, accounting for 90% of the market. During the nationwide campaign from late August until December this year to crack down on unqualified food products, 192,400 unlicensed food shops were closed down. 

In light of the "stigma in many peoples' minds about the quality of goods produced in China," sourcing website SourceJuice Friday posted an analysis of the rating system many manufacturers use for their products. Simply put, the product rating system is comprised of 'A' rating indicators, the more of them, the higher the quality and cost. Every country typically has a particular acceptable 'A' rating in place for a product. The time (the posting concluded)

of China producing cheap knock-off goods, toys or furniture has long since passed. This is an era where high quality goods are available if you look in the right places.

Yet problems with product quality in China can also be more systemic in nature. In the Investor Environmental Health Network's (IEHN) December video webcast "Product Toxicity and China: Insights for Investors and Companies," Melissa Brown of the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASRiA) outlined some of the real issues affecting the quality of products in the China supply chain. China's development has progressed rapidly, Brown states, yet

all the infrastructural support and key raw material support that Chinese companies may need are not there every day of the week. There's tremendous pressure on suppliers at all tiers of the supply chain. 

And moreover,

The knowledge level of companies themselves about their risk profile on toxic chemical issues in Asia is low. The information in simply not there...

To develop regulatory and enforcement tools for product quality and safety issues takes years or even decades, and in a sober assessment of the situation in China, Brown contends that China is 'only just starting' down this road. While the Chinese government is beginning to act strongly on this issue, the necessary tools are only just beginning to emerge in Asia, however, and typically only come into public view when there's been a disaster or scandal.

So Brown's advice: keep following the scandals.