Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

Ahead of the "March 15" World Consumer Rights Day, China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) released a notice detailing 100 typical cases of substandard imported consumer goods it detected in 2025, highlighting efforts to strengthen consumer protection amid China's consumption upgrading.

Published on the GAC's WeChat account on Saturday, the list underscores the importance of ensuring the quality of imported goods. The cited cases include excessive formaldehyde content and unqualified pH levels in clothing, as well as the migration of heavy metals such as lead, aluminum, chromium, cobalt, manganese, and nickel in products that come in contact with food such as tableware and kitchenware.

The customs action reflects the persistent upgrading of China's consumer market, which is of great significance to the country's opening-up and high-quality development.

For starters, China boasts the world's most complete industrial system and a super large market, as the country is transitioning from "scale dividends" to "quality dividends." Implementing strict quality standards plays an important role in this process. 

The efforts will keep propelling domestic businesses to increase investment in technological research and development, optimize production processes, and enhance product quality and safety management. 

Internationally, the entry of high-quality imported products to Chinese market not only diversifies options for Chinese consumers, but also introduces advanced technological concepts and management expertise. This dynamic allows China's industrial chain to integrate more deeply into the global value chain while continuously elevating the country's competitive standing in the world. 

The evolving demands of Chinese consumers are a primary driver of this industrial transformation and upgrading. As per capita GDP rises, Chinese consumers have increasingly shifted their focus toward ensuring product quality. 

With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, more than 400 million middle-income earners, annual total consumption nearing 50 trillion yuan ($7.25 trillion), and imports surpassing 20 trillion yuan, China's super-large market advantage is increasingly prominent. 

The country's massive market has spurred robust import demand, including consumer goods such as clothing, food, and high-quality tech products. China has remained the world's second largest import market for 17 consecutive years, and the import of goods and services is estimated to have exceeded $15 trillion during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

For many importers, this translates into expanding market opportunities, but only products that can reach the high-quality bar and meet Chinese consumers' demands for quality, safety, and personalization will find sustainable growth in this market.

Against the backdrop of consumption and industrial upgrading, China continues to encourage imports while maintain stringent quality controls over imported products. 

In the context of economic globalization, promoting imports holds significant implications for consumption upgrading, deeper integration into global industrial chains, and supply-side structural reform. Consumer goods imports occupy a unique position in this process: their growth reflects both the release of domestic market potential and the natural outcome of consumption upgrading.

Recent data underscores this trend. China's consumer goods imports have maintained steady growth. 

The country has hosted eight consecutive China International Import Expos and signed 24 free trade agreements with 31 countries and regions. In 2025, retail sales of consumer goods exceeded 50 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 50.1 trillion yuan, marking a 3.7 percent increase. The contribution rate of consumption to economic growth reached 52 percent, up by 5 percentage points.

These figures demonstrate that China's market opening is continuous. However, opening-up does not mean relaxing supervision. Strict quality oversight is the fundamental responsibility of safeguarding consumers' rights and interests, and a necessary means to ensure fair market competition. 

Allowing substandard products into China will only harm consumer interests, which will also negatively impact those compliant businesses, seriously disrupting market order. Therefore, the GAC notice serves not merely as a warning but as protection for compliant businesses, conducive to guiding market expectations.

Amid profound changes in global environment, rising protectionism and increasing geopolitical uncertainties, China's adherence to expanding imports while sticking to strict market supervision sends a clear signal to the world: The goal of encouraging imports is to meet Chinese people's diverse needs for a better life, and the premise of embracing the dividends of globalization is an unwavering commitment to quality and safety.