The Latest information & Developments on Chinese quality regulation FOR Leather, footwear & clothing

1. GB Standardization developments

a. Developing standard

In January 2021, a project of national compulsory standard for general safety requirement for footwear drafted in 2020 has passed the stage of consultation from members of the SAC (Standardization Administration of China) and the official members from different companies. This GB compulsory standard should be published in 2021 in China however the standard number and the date of its application remains unclear at this moment.

The proposed chemical restrictions are as follows:

In addition, the GB standards will impose hygiene and safety performances for footwear such as:

• Shoes, footwear parts or material that are claimed to be with anti-bacterial properties must be evaluated to sustain this claim (properties the label)
• There should not be exposed nails nor broken should be clearly marked on the shoes or on needles inside the footwear

b. Published standard

Last November 2020, a Chinese norm GB/T 39498-2020 listing chemical requirements for more than 100 substances in consumer articles was published: GB/T 39498-2020 (Guidelines for the use and control of key chemical substances in consumer product). As a reminder, the standards classified "/T" are recommended Chinese national standards but may be considered mandatory during spot checks by the Chinese authorities.

The proposed substances and thresholds are mainly inspired from European chemical regulations (REACh, POP, Toy safety directive depending on the scope of applicable products). A few applies to fashion articles (footwear, leather goods, gloves, clothing…) such as for example:

• Chromium VI and its compounds in products with leather and leather product with skin contact
• Cadmium in plastic materials
• Nickel release in products in direct and prolonged contact with the skin
• Phthalates in children’s articles

The list of substances, regulatory thresholds and the scope of applicable consumer products are available with CTC teams on demand.

More information

CTC GB standards Solutions

2. Technical Committees information

TC305 National Technical Committee for the Standardization of footwear has planned to issue the official English version of two standards in coming 2021.

• QB/T 4331-2012 Children’s athletic shoes
• QB/T 4546-2013 Children’s leather sandals

According to the standard system revision plan issued by the National Standardization Management Committee and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the TC305 will carry out 13 national standard system revision and new draft work in 2021, of which 7 are national standards and 6 are industry standards (see table below for specific standard information). The 2021 footwear standards drafting working meeting is scheduled to be held in mid-May, when the footwear standards committee secretariat will organize drafting units, technical experts and related enterprises are invited to participate in the joint promotion of the standard system revision process. The completion time of this revision process is not expected before mid-2022.

More information

CTC GB standards Solutions

3. Market surveillance

A recapitulative of the 2020 spot checks results conducted by the China State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR, national level) for the category “Shoes” and “Garments” is presented below:

(*) SAMR agency’s spot checks do not cover all the China provinces, hence the number of provinces considered is indicated for reader’s information.

At provincial levels, the local Administration for Market Regulation (AMR) of Guangzhou and Shanghai report numbers of leather goods (161 batches), footwear (202 batches of both children and adults) and garments (424 batches) that had been spot checked in 2020 and on an average 30% failed to comply with the local regulation for consumer goods. It is to be noted that goods sell on e-commerce platforms (Yihaodian, NetEase Kaola, Jindong Dangdang and Tmall) as well as official brands’ websites are also targeted by those checks.

More information

CTC GB standards Solutions

4. Market focus

In the past year, the import and export of foreign trade of China was significantly better than expected, and the scale of foreign trade reached a new record high. According to customs statistics, the total value of China's imports and exports of goods in 2020 will be RMB32.16 trillion, an increase of 1.9% over 2019. Of these, exports were 17.93 trillion yuan, an increase of 4%, while imports were 14.23 trillion yuan.

From January to December 2020, China's textile and clothing exports were US$291.22 billion, up 9.6% year to year. Among them, textile exports amounted to US$153.84 billion, up 29.2% year to year, while clothing exports totaled US$137.38 billion, down 6.4% year to year. In the month of December, China's textile exports amounted to US$12.29 billion, up 12.6% year to year, while clothing exports amounted to US$13.91 billion, up 2.8% year to year.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China

More information

CTC GB standards Solutions