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, 2015.
According to the Commission’s report, 1752 notifications of products posing a serious risk to consumer health and safety were processed through the RAPEX system during 2015. This represents a significant decrease from the number of notifications processed in 2014, when a record 2153 notifications were recorded, and the lowest number of notifications since 2011.
Once again, toys represent the product category with the most notifications recorded, with 555 notifications. Clothing, textiles and fashion items accounted for an additional 346 notifications, and motor vehicles for 214 notifications. Electrical appliance and equipment accounted for 199 notifications, and jewelry accounted for 117 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 (62 percent of the total). 15 percent of unsafe products originated in EU Member States, while 10 percent of notifications failed to identify any country of origin.
View the complete text of the EU Commission’s 2015 annual report on RAPEX statistics.
View an infographic illustrating key statistics from the report.
