Thousands of products produced in the Palestinian Authority are being sold in Israel without supervision of their quality and safety, with forged labels of a standard certificate from the Israel Standards Institute, according to the Manufacturers Association of Israel. The Manufacturers Association says that there has been a substantial rise in the past year in the number of complaints by Israeli manufacturers about products from Palestinian Authority territory being sold in Israel without inspection and without supervision of their production lines.
"This is a growing phenomenon, and in the past year dozens of complaints to us have piled up from manufacturers about products with no standard certification being sold throughout Israel that come from the Palestinian Authority," the head of the Manufacturers Association Blue and White Division Dr. Ron Tomer told "Globes", "The problem is particularly severe in relation to solar systems and water heaters made without supervision in Palestinian Authority areas and sold in Israel with a forged standards certificate. Such cases could lead to disaster, because of the connection of these systems to water and electricity. It's not for nothing that these are systems that must meet standards."
The complaints filed with the Manufacturers Association indicate that besides the flooding of the market with thousands of water heaters made without supervision on the West Bank, fire-risk products such as blankets, mattresses, and pillows, and work tools that carry safety risks, such as ladders, are also reaching Israel from Palestinian Authority areas.
"We're in favor of a full and free flow of trade with the Palestinian Authority, and it contributes a great deal to the economy and to political and commercial ties, but there has to be supervision of this trade to prevent potentially dangerous forged products coming in.," Manufacturers Association president Shraga Brosh said.
In some cases, products originating from the Palestinian Authority bore "Made in Israel" labels. "The production processes, the quality, the product standards, the regulation, the working conditions, and the environmental standards that exist in Israel do not exist in the Palestinian Authority areas, which means that describing the products as made in Israel misleads Israeli consumers and severely harms Israeli manufacturers. There has to be greater enforcement among those who sell the forged products to prevent them from reaching the general public," Brosh says.
The head of the Standardization Administration in Israel's Ministry of the Economy, Igor Duskelovitch, told "Globes" that the phenomenon of water heaters and solar power systems distributed in Israel with a forged standards label from the Standards Institute was known to the ministry. "The significance of a standards label is that the Standards Institute not only inspected the product and found it to be fit and safe for use, but also that it supervises the product's manufacturing process. We have found solar systems on the market with such labels when in fact there was no permit from the Standards Institute, but we cannot act in Palestinian Authority areas," he says.
"We will focus our efforts on minimizing the phenomenon by acting against Israeli marketers who buy these systems in the Palestinian Authority and distribute them in Israel. We have both administrative and criminal powers in this respect. So far, we have issued several administrative orders forbidding distributors from selling these products, and we are examining the possibility of starting criminal proceedings in the event of breach of the Standards Law," Duskelovitch adds.
In view of the expansion of the phenomenon, the Ministry of the Economy plans to issue a warning to the public against buying solar systems and water heaters made without supervision in the Palestinian Authority and sold in Israel with a forged standards label.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 27, 2015
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