Defective Goods Plague Chinese Government Procurement

As the number of unlicensed suppliers winning bids on Chinese government contracts has gone up, so too have the number of reports on shoddy and defective goods being provided to customers.  This increase in “shipped broken” merchandise is occurring even as regulators are attempting to crackdown on the supply chain process with increased regulation.

Failings in the system include supposedly cotton bedding for residents of a senior care facility purchased through a government contract that actually netted chemical-fiber made blankets that were unusable by the elderly patrons and desks for schools that collapsed at their first use,

“Many similar cases occur almost every year,” said Gu Liaohai, a government procurement expert. “It is mainly attributed to lax inspection of supplier qualifications.”

Though there are guidelines in place to prevent such things from occurring, the reality is many cases slip through.

“The government usually procures products from manufacturers. If unqualified enterprises can become candidates, it means either the enterprise provides false information to the government, or there are loopholes in the procurement department,” said Lv Yanbin, a deputy researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).