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Call to get tough on online fakes

2015-03-10 09:05 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Qian Ruisha
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The head of China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce yesterday called for more regulations and greater oversight of the e-commerce industry because of the challenges posed by fake goods.

At a news conference during the annual parliamentary session in Beijing, Zhang Mao said regulators should work with e-commerce companies on ways to improve industry supervision. [Special coverage]

All parties involved agreed that e-commerce can only enjoy healthy development with proper regulation, he said.

He urged e-commerce market places to take responsibility for promoting "credibility and integrity" and step up internal scrutiny of vendors.

Zhang said a system should be set up to track companies so that those who break the rules on counterfeit goods are punished and restricted in terms of business operations.

Underlining that the Internet is not a "lawless heaven," Zhang said government regulators would take more measures to protect the legitimate rights of online shoppers, including proposing new legislative bills and building up an online database for stricter supervision over e-commerce, Xinhua news agency reported.

Zhang said the SAIC needed to take a new approach to regulate booming sectors such as online commerce.

The agency will communicate with e-commerce firms in a better way, Zhang said. "Listen to them, provide guidance for them and demand their self-discipline."

In January, Jack Ma, chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba met SAIC officials after the agency released a report accusing Alibaba of tolerating unlicensed merchants who sell fakes online.

Results of an SAIC sample test released on January 23 showed that only 37.25 percent of surveyed commodities sold on Taobao.com were authentic, lower than a 58.7 percent average of all major online shopping platforms.

The SAIC accused Alibaba of allowing unlicensed merchants to use its Taobao and Tmall platforms and of failing to protect consumers' rights.

The SAIC said both sides had agreed to work together to "promote the healthy and orderly development" of e-commerce in China.

"The reason why there are so many market violations is that the cost of breaking rules is too low," Zhang said, adding that if punishments were made more severe then the market would improve and fake goods disappear.

He said e-commerce was growing faster than regulations and laws could keep up with.

Last year, Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission received about 18,000 complaints about online shopping, or around 15.7 percent of all complaints filed. It was not revealed how many involved counterfeit goods.

China's online sales were 2.79 trillion yuan (US$445 billion) in 2014, or around 10 percent of the country's retail sales total.

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