CRI听力:Annual Expose-the-culprits Show Sees New Rules to Protect Consumer Rights

Reporter: On of the focuses of this year's Consumer Rights Day has been the growing number of complaints Chinese consumers have about products purchased from outside China.

Recent reports have revealed a highly-popular item Chinese consumers have been after, a Japanese toilet seat lid which has numerous electronic options, is actually produced in factories in the city of Hangzhou here in China.

At the same time, a growing number of complaints are being lodged by Chinese shoppers who purchase clothes from abroad.

Song Xiushun deals with imported goods with China's quality watchdog.

"Our agencies across the country have found 17-hundred-85 batches of substandard imported clothing products. These include more than a million pieces of clothing valued at over 12 million US dollars. Brands such as Armani, Laperla, and Mongo have an especially high rate of faulty products."

Another area of concern for the Chinese Food and Drug Administration is packaged food items which aren't up to standards.

Xu Jinghe with the FDA's legal affairs office says they're working to tighten the rules surrounding food recalls.

"Both the producer and the distributor of food stuff are obligated to recall contaminated food products as soon as a problem is reported. The unsafe food should also be properly disposed of to avoid sneaking its way back to the shelves, and in severe cases, should be destroyed immediately."

Food safety, while always a concern in China, came to the forefront once-again last year following an expose into a Shanghai-based meat packing company.

Husi Food, a major supplier of meat products to fast-food chains including McDonalds and Pizza Hut, was discovered recycling bad meat and labelling old meat products as fresh.

It took the local FDA in Shanghai several weeks to recall the products and destroy them.

Meanwhile, a policy manual on how to punish businesses that violate consumer rights has formally gone into force.

The Penalty Act on Violating Consumer Rights and Interests spells out what happens to those who violate the "no-question-asked refund within seven days guarantee", a major lure used by many online Chinese retailers.

The new Act stipulates that business operators that fail to honor the clause in 15 days will be in violation.

They could face a fine as high as 500-thousand yuan.

Violators might also have their business licenses pulled.

Statistics from the Chinese E-commerce Research Center shows more than 100-thousand complaints were received last year, up 3.3 percent from 2013.

For CRI, I am Xie Cheng.