PPE

Personal protective equipment, China’s market development embarks on the “fast lane”

Flame retardant protective clothing, anti radiation clothing, acid and alkali resistant gloves and other personal protective equipment look ugly, but for workers, it is the last line of defense for health and safety

the reporter learned from the 2019 Shanghai Forum on innovation and development of labor protection industry held from June 4 to 5 that China has become one of the largest personal protective equipment markets in the world, and the market is still growing rapidly

with double-digit growth rate

“the scale of domestic personal protective equipment industry has been growing at a double-digit rate since 2014 (the growth rate is between 10% and 20%). China is the country with the fastest growth rate of the scale of personal protective equipment industry in the world at present.” Yang wenfen, director of the national labor protection products quality supervision and 1nspection Center (Beijing), told Science and technology daily< According to Yang wenfen, the market value of personal protective equipment in China is roughly equal to that in the United States when the total number of workers in the primary and secondary industries is 20 times that in the United States" This shows that the per capita level of protective equipment in China is still relatively low, and that there is great potential in China's personal protective equipment market. " Yang wenfen said Yihe Co., Ltd. is one of the partners of the forum. Ma JinFang, chairman of the board of the company, said that the current level of domestic personal protective equipment products can be described as “uneven”. Yang wenfen also said that the products of some excellent domestic enterprises have been comparable with those of foreign enterprises, and some enterprises have obtained UL certification in the United States and CE certification in the European Union. However, compared with foreign enterprises, the R & D investment of these enterprises is still insufficient” The new trend in the past two years is that some enterprises have begun to make efforts in product research and development. ” Yang wenfen said there is a huge room for improvement “according to statistics, 7500 workers die at work every day in the world, of which 1000 die in occupational accidents and 6500 die from occupational related diseases.” Mike kestei, global R & D technical director of personal safety protection product department of 3M group, was introduced at the forum in a critical moment, personal protective equipment can play an important role in protecting the health and safety of workers. However, many domestic industries still need to pay more attention to it< According to Ma JinFang, at present, most employees of chemical enterprises in China are generally equipped with anti-static clothing to prevent electrostatic sparks, one of the factors causing fire. However, flame retardant protective clothing, which plays a real protective role in fire and explosion accidents, is still in its infancy in China this has something to do with the lack of mandatory equipment standards in China “for many years, in the field of personal protective equipment in our country, there is only the standard of” code for the selection of personal protective equipment “, which is only a recommended standard, not a mandatory one.” Ma JinFang said that in addition to the lack of a complete set of supervision, assessment and punishment system, users are blind and random in purchasing, and even adopt the purchasing strategy of low price competition, which leads the industry to the disadvantage of vicious competition the supporting system is being improved fortunately, the mandatory national standard for personal protective equipment is just around the corner Yang wenfen revealed that China will soon promulgate the general principles and specific rules of various industries of the national mandatory equipment standard for personal protective equipment. The formulation of the general principles and specific rules of the personal protective equipment standard will become the method and basis for employers and operators to select, purchase and use personal protective equipment “the implementation of relevant domestic regulations and standards will make up for the missing links in the previous system level, and create a good development environment for China’s personal protective equipment industry.” Yang wenfen said the domestic certification system is also in place. One of the highlights of this forum is that Huaxia Certification Center officially released China’s voluntary certification in the field of personal protective equipment – sinoppe certification Zhang Li, deputy general manager of Huaxia Certification Center, said that in foreign countries, the US UL certification mark and the EU CE certification mark have become influential and highly recognized certification brands. However, the third party certification of domestic personal protective equipment industry is still in the preliminary stage “in the past, there was no certification system specifically for personal protective equipment in China.” Zhang Li expects that China’s voluntary certification of personal protective equipment will ensure the improvement of the overall quality level of the industry, support the improvement of the level of labor protective equipment, and promote the personal protective equipment industry into a good cycle

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