China Fire Bulletin Issue #1 September 2014 | Page 16

FIRE HIGHLIGHT
观 察

Who Will Build the New
Fire Market of China?

W

-An Introduction to CCC

e have just received news
from the Certification
and Accreditation
Administration of China (CNCA)
that the Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine (AQSIQ), Public Security
of China, and CNCA have jointly
claimed responsibility for and
intention to implement the China
Compulsory Certification (CCC),
commonly referred to as "CCCF"
in foreign countries to indicate its
relation to fire fighting equipment,
for 64 types of fire fighting
equipment and related products.

According to the announcement, as
of September 1, 2015, any equipment
on the new CCC list that does not
hold a valid CCC certification will
be banned from importation and
sales in mainland China. Past
requirements for CCC certifications
have fallen far short mostly due to
lazy enforcement practices, low
adoption rates by fire department
purchasing committees, and an
overall lack of clarity of both the
requirements and the processes
to achieve said requirements. This
was true even for Chinese citizens
attempting to get their, or their
employer's equipment certified.
Having a grasp of the language does
not guarantee understanding of the
logic of this highly bureaucratic and
mostly self serving organization.
That said, they have spent great deals
of effort to rapidly professionalize
the organization over the past year
and enforcement, according to the
new regulations, will be no joke.
If you don't have it, you will not be
able to get it into the country. If it is
already here, you will find no fire

16 CHINA FIRE BULLETIN

消防前沿

China Compulsory Certification (CCC)

departments able to issue a PO for it.

suppressing innovation.

Note: At the time of our last
issue, in June, calls to the CCCF
office by our staff resulted in no
useable information. No deadlines,
information, or details of any kind
were known by those answering the
phone and accepting applications,
even just 60-90 days ago. We have
reports of some companies (a USbased apparatus manufacturer)
who was in the middle of a vehicle
certification when the new rules
were announced, causing delays and
even required design changes. It is
the hope that, and intention of CFB
to pursue, any future changes will
be more inline with international
norms involving greater levels of
transparency, long-term schedules
of planned changes, committee
development input, and a longterm review processes by industry
stakeholders that better serve both
fire fighters and the manufacturing
industry as a whole while not

CCCF is taking significant steps
to implement China Fire Service
Law, general product quality
standards and China Certification
and Accreditation Regulations to
ensure the quality of fire fighting
equipment. The new regulations
have noble intentions. Just over
the past decade, since 2005, the
China Fire Service has gone from
using standard issue wet rags to
avoid smoke inhalation, to today's
requirements for multiple SCBA units
per firefighter. As with most things
Chinese, this is an astonishing pace
of development and any frustrations
that industry stakeholders may have
regarding these new regulations
must be put into perspective. Unlike
most int \