Made in China

[jpdm]

Business

Made in China
BIZLINKS By Rey Gamboa
Friday, August 17, 2007 As America digs deeper into the controversy questioning the quality of products made in China, our local officials seem to be taking their sweet time investigating just how safe or durable imported consumer goods manufactured by the world’s fastest growing economy are – and in instituting appropriate action on those that fall below standards.
For years, just like the US, the Philippines has been accepting at face value just about anything that comes from China. After all, most of these “Made in China” items are so cheap that people opt to forget and forgive “lapses” in quality.
Remember those defective Christmas lights that were the object of a yearly warning by the Department of Trade and Industry? For less than P100, it seemed that people would choose to buy this seasonal decorative item despite the apparent risk of fire – or electric shock.
Let’s not forget those electrical extension cords that come in so many neat shapes and colors. They are priced so low that many of our countrymen conveniently ignore the potential danger of sockets that melt with the prolonged flow of electricity.

Busy with other things

Our internal revenue and local government officials and personnel, sometimes in tandem with those from the immigration desk, may occasionally swoop down on the wholesale and retail centers of Divisoria, running after those Chinese who could barely speak and understand English and Filipino.
Depending on what agency is being represented, the apprehensions could be related to tax evasion or illegal entry and overstaying; or they could just be plain harassment and bribery. But rarely would there be a representative from the DTI’s standards bureau to question the quality of goods sold.
So the hapless consumer, who has heard how cheap goods sold in Divisoria could be, happily brings home a small fortune in purchased electrical gadgets, toys, footwear and bags, clothes, even foodstuff – all of them made in China.
When the electronic gadget conks out after a few uses, it is thrown away. When the mechanical toy falls apart in just a couple of days, it is dumped in the garbage bin. When the strap of a sandal comes loose after a dunking in Manila’s flooded streets, and the repair would cost more than its purchase price, the damaged footwear shares the same fate as all other defective items that have been bought.
The moral of the story here has become: you get what you pay for. Ironically, the culpability for poor quality products has shifted to the consumer; and the producer is allowed to go scot-free, to continue producing more of the same inferior products that would be bought by other gullible consumers.

Perforated intestines

It took three American children suffering from perforated intestines after swallowing magnets that had fallen out of their play things for Mattel to move for a recall of some 18 million of their Chinese-made products worldwide – and for the appropriate US regulatory agencies to respond more forcefully.
Now, media is suddenly bringing to fore toothpastes contaminated with toxic chemicals, necklaces and toys for children that have high levels of lead, potentially unsafe vehicle tires, puffer fish passed off as monk fish, glassware that could without notice break and cause cuts, even pet food containing contaminated vegetable proteins that could lead to sickness and death in cats and dogs.
How long before the world will once again trust goods made in China depends on how resolute and transparent its government will be in resolving the problem. For sure though, America can expect fewer goods from China priced at such bargain rates. We are now starting to realize why many Chinese products are so cheap. They not only pay low wages to their workers, they also employ extensive and indiscriminate production cuts, often those that bring their standards to below-acceptable levels.

Dumping ground

While America tightens on the quality of its imports from China, the rest of the world can expect a flood of rejected goods to wash their way. For countries like the Philippines which have poor regulatory enforcement standards, there will always be doors opened to accept these substandard goods.

[oldblue]

made in china products seem to getting a lot of pressure these days. laman ng business & time magz, intl. cable news network sila ah.

in other news some 93 Panamanians died from a made in china cough syrup. and of course, the recall of Barbie dolls which also led to the suicide of a Chinese toy factory owner.

America convinced or (was it) "lured" them to switch from communism to capitalism almost a decade ago. China still hesitant but tried the idea. tapos lumaki kagad ulo hahaha.

if these negative news continue, then I will say ang galing talaga ng CIA/think tank ng America. sa dami ng factories ngaun sa China without the assurance of buying customers, yari sila ipit ang economy nila.

The Chinese should have researched what happened to the American Factories in early 1900's and their reputation in those times.

kasi pina-history repeat itself ng mga Americans sa mga Chinese hahaha. I wonder how can they recover now. delikado yan

[mikey177]

There are also those Chinese-made penlight batteries (yung kamukha ng Energizer, pero iba yung tatak) that get completely drained after only a few minutes of operation.

The Chinese should have researched what happened to the American Factories in early 1900's and their reputation in those times.

oldblue,

Absent yata ako nung tinuro ito sa school. What was the reputation of US factories in the early 1900s?

[oldblue]

back in those times, American products were considered inferior by the whole world or at least the Europeans siguro kasi sila naman ang parang puwede i-consider na first world noon.

[jonski]

Umpisa na economy war ng China and US. lapit na olympics.

[boybi]

One of the reasons for this trade war between the US and China is the latter's refusal to allow its currency to be dictated by market demands. Like Malaysia and HK, the renmenbi is pegged or have a fixed exchange rate against the US dollar.

The accusations of the US against the Chinese made products may or may not be true. Remember that Mattel, et al are giant US companies. They should take the blame for this since they were the ones who approved the productions of the products, they were the ones who should have looked into the source of the raw materials used for their products. The Chinese manufacturers may have used a different raw material to cut cost during production without informing the US Co., but being a big multinational company, don't they do a random quality control on their finished products before shipping it to their resellers?

[jpdm]

The tendency of Chinese products is that they easily break down. Yung batteries nila nag-iinit or nag-le-leak kaagad. Mga appliances nila poor ang quality.

Yung sapatos, bag, damit nila mahinang klase.

My favorite local manufacturer of shoes, Mendrez ay sinira reputation nila kasi they are now selling low quality Made in China shoes that they say na Made in Marikina.... Ang layo sa gawang Marikina nung China made.

I think reputable local manufacturers should not resort to cutting cost by selling Made in China products kasi lalo silang masisira....ang dali pa naman masira yung fake na leather o matanggal yung suwelas ng made in China na sapatos.

[imprezawrxsti]

came across an article couple of days ago....China now lead as the most polluted place on Earth..Sad.

[mamichula]

Right from the very first time I heard about it I told myself.. this has got to be politically motivated.China is poised to become the next super power, people have been buzzing about it. I thought, well the world's current super power can't stop the inevitable... But I kinda anticipated something like this just before the Beijing olympics.
In Beijing you can just feel the excitement in the air, the Chinese know that this is their chance to boost tourism, show the world what China is all about. But I guess the world's current super power
couldn't and wouldn't let China steal the spotlight would they?

Iam not pro china, heck my money was stolen in the airport while I was in Beijing, but I think China became a threat and the ruling group would do anything to maintain their hegemony.

Politically motivated or not we had to get rid of the baby stuff I recently bought in Rustans. haaay

I wonder how China would recover from this one.The struggle for dominance can get nasty and they should have anticipated something like this.

[Lucius]

2008 will be a good year to start world war 3 daw yun siguro isip ng china. Kasi swerte sila next year

Pero sabi naman ng US, 8-2=6 so malas ang china