Imported products and safety: what the EU data says

Importing a product is not only about finding it at the right price: it means making sure it is safe and compliant with European rules. The European Union’s official data shows how concrete this issue is, and why verification is not an excess of caution.

The Safety Gate 2024 figures

Safety Gate is the European Union’s rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products. In 2024 it recorded a record number of notifications:

4,137 alerts in 2024, against 3,412 in 2023 and 2,117 in 2022 (almost doubled in two years)
Products of Chinese origin accounted for 40% of all alerts (up from 37% in 2023)
The share rises to 61% when cosmetics are excluded, the most-alerted category overall (36% of the total), followed by toys and electrical appliances

How to read this data

These numbers are not an argument “against China”: they also reflect the huge volume of imported products and the intensification of European controls. But they should be read for what they really say: the average quality of a market says nothing about the individual supplier.

In a landscape where a significant share of alerts concerns products of the same origin, the difference is made by selecting the right supplier and verifying conformity before the order, not afterwards.

A non-compliant batch blocked at customs, or withdrawn from the market, costs far more than the verification that would have avoided it.

What it means for importers

For a company buying in China, the Safety Gate data is a practical reminder:

Verify suppliers, do not trust the catalogue
Check conformity (CE marking, applicable directives, test reports) upstream
Document every step, because the importer’s responsibility is precise

How Liwola steps in

Liwola builds supplier verification and conformity control into its process: the goal is for what arrives in Europe to be not only competitive, but safe and legally sellable. Related reading: how to verify a Chinese supplier and CE marking and import.

Sources

Need to make sure a product is compliant for the EU market? Talk to Liwola.