CCTV exposes unlicensed and fake goods at Chinese Walmarts
Staff Reporter
2014-01-27
A Walmart store in Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang province. (Photo/CNS)
China's state-broadcaster CCTV has accused US retailer Walmart of bypassing quality and safety checks to fast-track products, some of which are unlicensed, to Chinese shelves.
The four-minute CCTV report aired on Jan. 23 featured around 200 alleged company documents from as far back as 2006 showing that company managers signed off on more than 600 products that lacked the requisite paperwork for distribution. The unlicensed products even included fake products, including counterfeit versions of the Feitian Moutai Chinese liquor made by Kweichow Moutai, the CCTV report said.
In response, Walmart, the world's No. 1 retailer, explained that it uses its "special approvals process" only in specific circumstances.
"Our special approval process is used to accelerate listing items from suppliers we already do business with. The process requires three levels of management approval on an item by item, supplier by supplier basis. This ensures that we do not sell fake or inferior products nor we compromise the welfare or safety of our customers," the company said in a statement, adding they have "stopped selling hundreds of items" that fall short of customers' "quality expectation" over the past year.
A former supermarket manager told the Chinese-language Beijing Times newspaper that these special approvals processes employed by companies such as Walmart is a form of corruption. A new product needs to go through a lot of administrative processes and paperwork to gain access to a supermarket, the manager said, suggesting that Walmart executives could be forgoing these requirements in exchange for some kind of personal benefit.
This is not the first time Walmart, which has more than 400 stores in China and plans to open 110 more, has run into trouble on the mainland. Earlier this month, US retailer was forced to recall donkey meat sold at some Chinese outlets after tests showed the product contained traces of other animals, including the cheaper fox meat. In 2011, Walmart and France's Carrefour were fined a combined 9.5 million yuan (US$1.6 million) for manipulating product prices. Later that year the US retailer was fined again for selling duck meat past its expiry date.
Walmart, however, is far from the only foreign brand to be criticized by CCTV. Other past subjects of negative reports include global coffee chain Starbucks, electronic giants Apple and Samsung, fast food chain KFC and carmakers Audi and Subaru.
