The Commission of the European Union (EU) has released statistics on notices of unsafe consumer products that have been processed through the EU’s rapid information system (RAPEX) for the year ending December 31, 2016.
According to the Commission’s report, 1691 notifications of products posing a serious risk to consumer health and safety were processed through the RAPEX system during 2016. This represents a continued decline from the number of notifications processed in 2014, when more than 2000 notifications were recorded, and represents the lowest number of notifications since 2011.
Once again, toys represent the product category with the most notifications, with 540 notifications recorded. Motor vehicles moved into second place this year, with 372 notifications, followed by clothing, textiles and fashion items with 266 notifications. Electrical appliance and equipment accounted for 144 notifications, and childcare articles and children’s equipment accounted for 100 notifications. The remaining 28 product categories accounted for less than 100 notifications each.
Regarding the country of origin identified in connection with products posing a serious safety risk, the overwhelming majority of notifications were once again related to products originating from China, including Hong Kong (53 percent of the total, down from 62 percent in 2015). However, the percentage of unsafe products originated from EU Member States increased to 29 percent of all notifications, up from just 15 percent in 2015. Eight (8) percent of notifications failed to identify any country of origin.
View the complete text of the EU Commission’s 2016 annual report on RAPEX statistics.
View a highly illustrated and informative factsheet summarizing the report’s key findings.
