China is tightening crackdown on defective medical supplies

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/26 14:13:40

China has tightened crackdown on fake and defective medical supplies, as the fast-growing global demand has driven up the price of medical products, with some businessmen engaging in profiteering acts, Chinese officials said Sunday.

As of Friday, China has seized 89.046 million defective face masks and 418,000 other protective products with other issues and has fined 350 million yuan ($49.4 million) nationwide since the outbreak in China, said Gan Lin, vice director of State Administration for Market Regulation.

Since the pandemic outbreak, the market has witnessed a severe shortage of medical supplies and personal protective equipment including face masks, gloves and gowns, and many people have taken the opportunity to manufacture and sell inferior and even fake products, which has caused chaos in the market, Gan admitted.

China will continue to crack down on market violations, while, on the other hand, keep improving the business environment in China to promote business resumption rates after the virus is basically brought under control in the country, Gan said.

Gan made this remark at a press briefing on a report about China's intellectual property rights protection and improvement of its business environment in 2019.

For better protecting intellectual properties, China in 2019 tightened its crackdown on violations on trademarks and patents, and settled 39,000 cases, up 13.7 percent year on year, Gan noted

To improve the business environment, China has made efforts including building six new free trade zones, abolishing more than 400 terms and regulations that did not match the new Foreign Investment Law, and further narrowed down the Negative List in 2019, according to an official.

As a result, China ranked 14th in World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index 2019, up three places from 2018. According to the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 report, China jumped to 31st place from 46th in 2018.