Foreign manufacturers of industrial safety products, including Germany''s UVEX, the U.S.-based KAPPIER and Canada''s BW, are shipping their products to China to fill a gap in the market which has been costing lives.
China is improving industrial safety standards to avert the frequent occurrence of accidents. Yet for both product quality and production capacity reasons, Chinese enterprises are unable to meet the demand for safety products, estimated to be worth 20 billion yuan (2.41 billion U.S. dollars). Statistics show 860,000 industrial accidents occurred in China from January to October 2001, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. The 14 most serious accidents killed more than 30 people each.
Recognizing the deficiency, Chinese enterprises have also been striving to catch up. Sha Xiaolin, board chairman of Shanghai Linzheng Safety Equipment Co., Ltd., said the company would investhundreds of millions yuan in establishing safety production bases in China in the next five years.