During their third biennial consumer product safety trilateral summit, product-safety officials from the United States, European Union (EU) and China laid the foundation for strengthening cooperation and continued an exchange of “opinions and information concerning seamless surveillance of consumer products, consumer product tracking and traceability, as well as consumer product safety information dissemination.” Officials with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the European Commission’s Health and Consumers Directorate General and Enterprise and Industry Directorate General, and China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine participated in the talks.
According to a joint statement released at the summit’s close, the participating agencies will, among other matters, (i) address ways to move toward a “seamless surveillance” model of product-safety enforcement and (ii) “continue research on relevant standards in the field of consumer products of shared concern by Tripartite Participants, exchange information on technical regulations and standards for these products and explore jointly the possible convergence of safety requirements.” The participants also committed to improving information exchange, as permitted by the countries’ respective laws, and to communicating major safety issues as early as possible. The next summit will be held in 2014 in the EU.
