There exist five major barriers to the protection of consumers' legal rights in China, monopoly being the first, experts said.

To welcome the "March 15" International Day on Consumer Rights Protection, a forum under this theme was held on March 13 by the China Association of Quality Promotion (CAQP).

Despite enhanced awareness of rights protection among consumers, and improved work by relevant institutions, complaint handling in this field still lacks far behind the development of market economy and consumers' rising needs. Due to limited means and low efficiency, not more than 30 percent complaints had been properly addressed in recent one or two years.

Li Yingfeng, Secretary-general of CAQP, attributed the situation to reasons in five aspects. First of all, many departments with natural or executive monopoly resources seriously infringe upon consumers' rights, regardless of relevant laws and regulations, and have become the biggest target of people's complaints.

Many business runners, seeking only for profits and overlooking honesty, sell fake or even shoddy goods, put up advertisements with false or misleading information, or force their goods on consumers by various means.

Due to a serious information imbalance between business runners and consumers, many consumers, especially "disadvantaged groups" including farmers, laid-off workers, old people and children, are low in their awareness about and capability of protecting rights of their own. Statistics showed that only 11 percent consumers rose to violations on their legal rights, while the figure among the above-mentioned groups was only 7.8 percent.

Some judiciary or enforcement staff fail to regard consumers' legal rights protection in a proper way, which doubtlessly encouraged violation activities by some business operators and fake goods producers.

Some consumers resort to irrational means to protect their rights, such as by consumption defrauds, returning goods out of ill intentions or asking for unreasonable compensation through threats.

Current laws and regulations on consumer protection mainly focus on compensating consumers instead of punishing violators, experts pointed out. Therefore, legislation and enforcement must be strengthened against violators to provide enough deterrence.

By People's Daily Online