7th Annual Meeting of the Sino-German Working Group on Product Safety

On 12 April 2017, the 7th Annual Meeting of the Sino-German Working Group on Product Safety took place in Hangzhou. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Stefan Schnorr, Director General (DG) of Digital and Innovation Policy Department of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and by Mr. Sun Wenkang, Director General of Inspection and Supervision Department of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ), as well as by Mr. Liu Weijun, Deputy Director of Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA).

The central theme of this annual meeting was Digitization and E-commerce. During the meeting, both German and Chinese sides affirmed highly the achievements reached through the cooperation, introduced the framework and measures of market and quality supervision in the of cross-border e-commerce, as well as the policies and the development plan of certification concerning e-commerce field of both countries, and discussed about the focus of the next step of cooperation.

During the session on market surveillance and product safety, DG Schnorr and DG Sun signed a Declaration of Intent of a “Pilot Project for Harmonization of the Supervision Measures of Industrial Products”. During the session on conformity assessment and accreditation, DG Schnorr and Director Liu initialed a Memorandum of Understanding on “Bilateral Cooperation in the Field of Green Product Certification”.

Besides relevant authorities of both countries, representatives of associations and enterprises attended the annual meeting. Participating authorities and associations included BMWi, AQSIQ, CNCA, Zhejiang Entry-exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau (Zhejiang CIQ), Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), Federal Network Agency (BnetzA), China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS), Delegations of German Industry & Commerce (AHK), DIN, Alibaba Group etc.

Additionally, technical workshops and a round table in the area of the Working Group on Product Safety were held prior to the Meeting on 11 May 2017. Representatives of the two governments, and experts in related research institutions and industry held constructive discussions on cooperation in the fields of “Technical Innovation and Harmonization of Product Safety in Automobile Industry”, “Safety of the Consumption Goods in Cross Border E-commerce”, “Green Product Certification” and “Proficiency Testing and Reference Materials”.