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Webinar on APEC Public-Private Dialogue on Product Safety in Digital Trade-Regional Collaboration for Safer Online Shopping Environment

Webinar on APEC Public-Private Dialogue on Product Safety in Digital Trade-Regional Collaboration for Safer Online Shopping Environment

The Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) hosted a webinar on "APEC Public-Private Dialogue on Product Safety in Digital Trade" on April 28, 2022. Product safety regulators, e-commerce platforms, and consumer groups in the Asia-Pacific region joined this webinar and exchanged their approaches to ensuring safety of products sold online. It is APEC economies' goal to build an online shopping environment that earns the trust of consumers by preventing unsafe products from being circulated online.

The BSMI indicated that the safety of products sold online has been receiving much attention from all over the world. Studies have identified growing concerns about the compliance of online products with safety regulations along with the flourish of e-commerce activities. APEC is currently the largest e-commerce market in the world and the BSMI proposed a project under the APEC Sub-Committee on Standards and Conformance to engage e-commerce stakeholders in discussing issues related to online product safety at regional level. The proposal was co-sponsored by Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and the United States. 118 delegates from 11 APEC economies participated in this webinar, showing the strong interest of APEC economies in this topic.

There were 3 sessions in this webinar. BSMI, Enterprise Singapore, WorkSafe New Zealand, and ASEAN Committee on Consumer Protection (ACCP) illustrated relevant policies and best practices from the public sector perspectives. Shufuren Japan, PChome Online Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. shared consumer expectations and product safety initiatives from the private sector. The panel discussion invited speakers to comment on a number of questions regarding public-private collaboration.

This public-private dialogue allowed the public and private sectors to present on their strategies and innovative practices to address product safety issues that are unique to e-commerce activities. The shared experience included technology used by the public sectors to assist in market surveillance of products sold online, internal processes adopted by e-commerce platforms to approve product listings and monitoring sellers with high risk, materials of consumer education to be easily understandable and comprehensive. It was agreed that regulator-platform-consumer collaboration is critical to build an online shopping environment that protects consumers from being exposed to unsafe products.

Director General Lien of the BSMI further mentioned that the BSMI has been having intensive discussion with the e-commerce industry lately, including the Non-Store Retailer Association, online shopping malls, international e-commerce companies and social media, about areas where cooperation can be strengthened to enhance disclosure of compliance information by sellers. The BSMI will continue following up this issue both at regional and domestic levels to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its practices through cross-border cooperation.

Responsible Division: 5th Division
Contact Person: Hung, Chuan-Hsiou, Deputy Director
Tel. (O): +886-2343-1788
E-mail: john.hung@bsmi.gov.tw

  • 編修日期:2022/05/02
  • 上稿單位:綜合企劃組
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