On the border between China and Russia, the city of Manzhouli, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has been stepping up efforts to develop the tourism industry, in part to offset declines in its prominent trade industry. City officials aim to make Manzhouli a place where tourists could experience authentic Russian culture. However, an stubborn influx of phony Russian products could threaten that goal. This is the second story of a two-part report on the trade and business of Manzhouli.
Among a cluster of souvenir stores and Russian restaurants in the center of Manzhouli, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a 40-year-old shopkeeper spent much of the morning of August 3 arranging products on shelves packed with coffee, tea, flour, chocolate, bread and other products purportedly imported from Russia, just on the other side of the border.
Although a sign hanging outside proclaimed the store as a supplier of imported Russian goods, the storekeeper acknowledged that they didn't import everything straight from Russia.
"We don't import all these products directly from Russia, we purchase some from local wholesalers instead," she said.
However, a closer look at some of the products reveals prices that seem suspiciously low. For example, the store was selling packages of Russian Alenka brand chocolates for 5.7 yuan ($0.86) each. A similar-sized package of Alenka chocolates sourced from a Russian supermarket chain retails for 20 yuan on tmall.com, which guarantees the product's authenticity. The price includes a 5.1 yuan import duty.
Low prices hint at one of Manzhouli's ongoing problems - imports of phony Russian products.
"The cheap goods are all considered fake Made-in-Russia products," said a local merchant surnamed Zhao, who has been working locally for years.
The key is in the wholesalers.
"Actually, some retailers purchase products from the wholesalers who don't import them from Russia, but rather produce them here," Zhao told the Global Times on August 2.
The phony product problem is significant because the local government has been pushing hard to develop the tourism industry now that the city's traditional trade industry has hit hard times due to Russia's economic slump.
For example, a government-backed local enterprise that specializes in real estate and tourism has invested about 500 million yuan to build a theme park in the city devoted to matryoshka dolls, the icon Russian dolls that nest inside each other.
In the park, which opened in July, visitors can purchase matryoshka dolls at prices ranging from 20 yuan to 1,200 yuan.
However, the influx of phony Made-in-Russian products threatens the businesses selling genuine products and undercuts the local government's goal to turn the city into a place where visitors can experience authentic Russian culture, an official from the local government, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Global Times on August 2.
Fake Russian products
In 2015, the number of tourists to the border town fell by about 17.2 percent to 537,000, according to the local government's statistics bureau. It was the first drop in five years.
In March 2015, the Manzhouli Food and Drug Administration raided an illegal production line for "Russian-made" tiramisu cakes in the city, according to a story on the local news portal nmgnews.com.cn.
Like many border towns, Manzhouli has a thriving border trade that dates back to the 1990s, said Liu Huaqin, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
