Imports get stuck because of no label on energy saving

17/12/2012

Electronics and refrigeration enterprises fear that from January 1, 2013, their refrigerators and air conditioners would not be launched into the market because of the delay in energy saving labeling.

The enterprises have been put on tenterhooks since their imports have not been labeled as energy saving products as required by the state management agencies, while the labeling regulation would take effects as of January 1, 2013.

The problem is that their goods are still queuing up for getting labeled. While the volume of goods for labeling is very big, there is only one agency in charge of this.

Analysts have also predicted that with the current deadlock of goods at the inspection center, a high volume of goods would not have labels prior to the early next year.

Pham Thien Thi, a senior executive of LG Electronics Vietnam, said the company began making procedures for the compulsory labeling two months ago. However, to date, the product samples have not been tasted for labeling yet.

Thi has expressed his worry that a high volumes of goods would not be labeled prior to December 31, 2012. If so, this would put enterprises at a disadvantage when competing with the labeled products.

“We wish to see one more inspection center to be set up in HCM City instead of only one in Hanoi as currently, so that the inspection and labeling process could be sped up,” Thi said.

Head of the import-export division of a home appliance distribution chain which specializes in trading Japanese brand products has also confirmed that the labeling process has been going very slowly.

It takes 3-5 days on average to inspect a refrigerator sample, while it takes 1-1.5 days to examine a refrigerator sample.

He has agreed that the main reason behind the slow process is the lack of testing centers.

At present, only the experiment and inspection center in Hanoi belonging to Vinacomin has been allowed to inspect electronics and refrigeration products. Meanwhile, there are tens of manufacturers, importers and distributors that have products to be examined, and there are thousands of samples waiting for testing.

A paradox exists that there are 2-3 testing centers in charge of inspecting other consumer electrical goods such as electronic fan, lamps, cookers…

The above said Head of the import-export division, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has released the decision on recognizing an inspection center in Thailand – Intertek. As such, importers would be able to have the imports tested in Thailand before they are carried to Vietnam.

It is expected that one more in Thailand and one more in South Korea would be set up in the near future. However, the testing center has also been overloaded already.

In fact, the decision on the compulsory labeling was released a long time ago. However, enterprises only began preparing for the new regulation in March or April. Therefore, they don’t have much time to undertake so many works.

To date, state management agencies still have not promulgated enough documents guiding the implementation of the new regulation. It’s still unclear for businesses whether they have to have the products, imported a long time ago and have not been sold out, labeled as energy saving.

If the answer is “yes”, enterprises, it would cost them a lot of money, because a lot of models would not be churned out and imported more in the future.

By Le My

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