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 health and safety were processed through the RAPEX system during 2015. This represents a significant decrease from the 2153 reports received in 2014, which represented the highest annual number of recorded notifications on record. The number of notifications of dangerous products received in 2015 was the lowest annual number received since 2011.
Of the 1752 notifications of products processed through the RAPEX system during the year as presenting a serious risk to consumers, 555 (31.4 percent) were related to toys, with an additional 346 (19.7 percent) related to clothing, textiles and fashion items, and 214 (12.2 percent) related to motor vehicles. There were also 199 notifications related to electrical appliances and equipment (11.4 percent), and 117 notifications (6.7 percent) related to jewelry.
Regarding the country of origin identified in reports of dangerous products, 1276 reports were related to products originating from China, including Hong Kong, while 52 reports were related to products originating from the United States, a total of 214 reports failed to identify any country of origin.
View the complete text of the EU Commission’s 2015 annual report on RAPEX statistics.
View a colorful infographic depicting highlights from the year’s data.
