Chinese Product Registration Regulations
Ensuring Your Brand Complies With China’s New Cross-Border Product Registration Requirements
How to ensure your business’ food and health products are compliant for sale in China under the new Product Registration Requirements.
What are the new Product Registration Requirements?
The Chinese cross-border e-commerce sector has grown 68% in the past 5 years. In 2015 it was valued at ¥638 Billion ($129 billion AUD).
But the Chinese government feels the sector has been abused. Consumers have used e-commerce as a channel to bring goods into the country without registration or significant customs clearance.
On the 8th of April 2016, The Chinese Government implemented a raft of changes to taxes on products purchased on websites outside of China and delivered cross-border to Chinese consumers.
On top of these tax reforms, there were a number of changes made to requirements for products in the food and health sector sold via Cross-border E-commerce.
Previously, products in this category could be shipped directly to China from a brand’s website or sold via T-Mall, Amazon, Taobao and similar sales channels without pre-registration with the Chinese Government.
Going forward, before these brands can sell goods to the Chinese market, they will require:
Product Registration – Each SKU of a product needs to be registered through the appropriate Chinese government channels to enable products to pass through customs. Products without this registration will be turned away at the border.
“Importer of Record” – all products will need to be assigned an Importer of Record (IOR). The IOR is the party responsible for clearing the goods through customs.
Who is affected?
Brands selling goods over the Internet via T-Mall, JD, Amazon and other similar sites. Going forward these platforms will be unable to market products that do not have the correct documentation.
Brands selling in China through Agents / Importers who have not had the products registered;
Brands selling direct from their own websites.
Timing
On the 24th of May, Chinese Customs Authorities established a 1-year Grace period before these new product registration requirements will be enforced. This gives importers of food and health related products until the 11th of May 2017 to ensure all of their regulation documentation is up to date.
It’s important to note that the registration process can take as long as 4 months so timing is still actually quite tight for brands in these categories to ensure they are compliant. Imported food and health products which do not have the proper registration documentation by the 11th of May 2017, will be stopped at the Chinese borders.
CSM Solutions for Chinese Product Registration
CSM, through its China Market Entry platform have developed a Product Registration Management Platform for clients which enables the following:
Product Registration for Cross-border and local sales distribution;
Hosting, management and handing of all documentation;
Provision of an Importer of Record to facilitate customs management;
Support and communications with local sales channels and cross-border platforms.
