The Chinese government has vowed to cramp down on the exports of cheap and substandard products into African countries like Malawi by some of its businesses to salvage the country’s image on the international market.
Councillor in the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Yang Peipei, admitted to journalists during a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the issue of substandard products has tarnished the image of China globally, hence the move by China to undertake stringent measures to deal with issue.
“We have given ourselves a three year time frame to eradicate this,” she said.
“The companies cut the cost of production by compromising quality of the products to reach out to low income earners but this is affecting the image of China,” said Yang.
She said China already has systems in place to check against exports of substandard products but admitted that loopholes exist.
“Our job now will be to seal with these loopholes,” she said.
She also challenged countries like Malawi to put in place systems that can prevent such products from entering their markets.
“In Europe and the United States, you find high quality Chinese products. The same is the case here in China. But it’s in countries in Africa such as Malawi where China is associated with low quality products. It is therefore also up to Malawi to check against such products,” said Yang.
Since China and Malawi established their diplomatic relations in 2008, trade volumes between the two countries have increased by 400 percent and was recorded as US$300 million in 2014.
Malawi and China have a preferential trade agreement that allows about 96 different products be exported to China duty free to make them have competitive prices on the Chinese market.
While Malawi exports to China agricultural products, China ships to Malawi electronics, furniture and equipment among others, weighing more on the trade balance.
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