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- Not at the checkout: stores will start blocking the sale of dangerous products and counterfeit goods
Not at the checkout: stores will start blocking the sale of dangerous products and counterfeit goods
Counterfeit and other dangerous products will be blocked at the cash registers when trying to sell. Such a bill was developed by deputies from United Russia, the document was sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which, as Izvestia found out, has already supported the initiative. The Council of Legislators of the Russian Parliament gave instructions to develop it back in the spring, and work on it was carried out by both chambers. Earlier, the Rosselkhoznadzor insisted on the introduction of a lockdown, since today it is possible to withdraw such products only after obtaining the consent of the prosecutor's office for verification and a court decision. How the new anti—counterfeiting scheme will work is described in the Izvestia article.
Why has the blocking of dangerous goods not been established yet?
Products that are dangerous to health and life, as well as counterfeit products, will be blocked at the cash desks. Sergei Lisovsky, deputy chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Competition from the United Russia faction, has prepared such a bill for submission to the State Duma. It is proposed to grant Rospotrebnadzor the right to immediately suspend or completely stop the sale of products if they are potentially dangerous to health.
The document, which Izvestia has, amends a number of federal laws, including "On Consumer Rights Protection", "On Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare of the population", "On State Control (Supervision) and Municipal Control in the Russian Federation". They are asked to grant Rospotrebnadzor the right to immediately suspend or completely stop the sale of products if they are potentially dangerous to health.
According to the draft law, in this case, the agency will issue an order to stop the sale of such products, as well as notify the prosecutor's office within 24 hours. At the same time, the rules and criteria for such a decision, bringing its content to the participants of the turnover and consumers will be determined by the Government of the Russian Federation.
In addition, the bill introduces an amendment to the law "On the Basics of State Regulation of Trading Activities in the Russian Federation", which will allow Rospotrebnadzor to use the state information system for monitoring the turnover of goods subject to mandatory labeling to block dangerous goods at cash desks (now more than 20 product groups are included in the Honest Sign system — Ed.).
— Currently, the effectiveness of the labeling system is 50-60%, since so far we cannot use its main tool — blocking dangerous goods at the checkout. Today, in order to implement it, the regulatory authorities must take a number of actions that will take a long time," Sergei Lisovsky explained to Izvestia. — Including sending letters to sellers and manufacturers, and obtaining the consent of the prosecutor's office to conduct an inspection under the moratorium. But most importantly, you need to understand exactly which store this dangerous product is in.
According to him, the labeling system allows you to instantly identify this product, as well as quickly block all products. The government and manufacturers have spent a lot of money to launch a digital quality assurance system, but it turns out that it is not working yet, the deputy explained.
The bill will be submitted to the State Duma before the end of the autumn session.
— In the spring of this year, the Council of Legislators instructed to work out legislative decisions on granting federal executive authorities the authority to promptly block the turnover of illegal products using the state information labeling system, — Alexander Lutovinov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on Regulations and Organization of Parliamentary Activities, told Izvestia.
According to him, relevant departments and representatives of both houses of Parliament have done a lot of work in this direction, which led to the preparation of the relevant bill.
— We look forward to its early introduction and adoption, — said the senator.
What is the danger of selling low-quality goods?
As Izvestia found out, the bill has already received the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This follows from the response sent to the State Duma and the Federation Council by Deputy Head of the Department Ekaterina Priezdeva following the decisions of the Presidium of the Council of Legislators.
"The Ministry of Industry and Trade has submitted for consideration a draft federal law aimed at suspending and terminating the sale of products that pose a danger to the life and health of consumers. The Ministry of Industry and Trade supports this initiative," the document says, which is available to the editorial board.
At the same time, it is reported that the document is currently in the process of being finalized according to the proposals of the department, as well as other federal executive authorities.
Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry and Rospotrebnadzor with a request to comment on what exactly is proposed to be finalized in the draft law.
Earlier, in an interview with Izvestia, the head of the Rosselkhoznadzor, Sergey Dankvert, said that in Russia it is necessary to introduce the blocking of dangerous goods at the checkout as soon as possible, as this undermines consumer confidence. According to him, it was assumed that such products, as well as counterfeit goods, would be automatically blocked at the cash registers immediately, but this has not yet been accepted at the legislative level.
— Indeed, the labeling system has the technical capability to block various types of illegal products, which has already been partially implemented and is showing excellent results. The launch of all related tools and the expansion of the powers of the supervisory authorities will act as an effective mechanism for suppressing violations (including those related to the sale of counterfeit and dangerous products)," explained Oleg Pavlov, head of the Public Council at Rospotrebnadzor.
At the same time, this will be a good preventive factor for businesses, which, as soon as this measure is operational, will think about the expediency of violations under threat of stopping sales in all sales channels, the public figure believes.
According to him, the share of counterfeit in some categories of unmarked products varies from 20% to 50%. Therefore, it is important that the draft law be adopted as soon as possible and apply to all new categories of goods that, according to the government's decision, are covered by labeling.
The Association of Retail Trade Companies (ACORT) refrained from commenting on the initiative.
— At the request of Rospotrebnadzor, CRPT, the operator of the Honest Sign state system, has already blocked the turnover of biologically active additives containing melatonin and simethicone, which are prohibited for such products. A total of 5.5 million packages from 44 manufacturers and 31 importers," Revaz Yusupov, Deputy General Director of the CRPT, explained to Izvestia.
According to him, the system allows not only to track each unit of production in real time, but also to take prompt action if the facts of the turnover of goods that do not comply with the requirements of the legislation are established.
— The initiative under discussion will strengthen this area of work and ensure greater protection of the population from low-quality and unsafe goods. This is a logical development of existing mechanisms," said Revaz Yusupov.
He also recalled that the permissive mode of operation of cash registers that check goods in the labeling system at the time of sale has already blocked sales of 2.3 billion unsafe and substandard goods to customers, and sales of expired dairy products have decreased 122 times. In the near future, at the initiative of Rospotrebnadzor, the mechanism of "auto fines" for violating the requirements for the sale of labeled goods should also be launched, the representative of the CRPT noted.
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