Thirty-five deputies to the National People's Congress, China's legislature, submitted a joint proposal Friday appealing for sterner penalty on manufactures and sellers of fake, shoddy products.

In compliance with law, consumers can get compensation equal to twice the amount of the money they pay for fake and shoddy products, but NPC deputies from east China's Jiangsu Province, however, say that by so doing, it is inadequate and effective to contain such illegal sales. "The maximum ratio for penalty should be as high as one to ten."

The production cost of fake goods is limited and often negligible to producers. And the possibility is very little for the inferior products to come to light. Moreover, the compensation itself evolves relatively complicates procedures, the deputies noted.

As a matter of fact, only one out of a thousand fake, shoddy goods makers received criminal sanction during the January-November period in 2004, figures show.

Pointing to this situation, the NPC deputies said the threshold for sales of fake and shoddy products entitled to criminal probe should be lowered to 10,000 yuan (about US$1,200) from the current 50,000 yuan (some US$6,000). Even death penalty can be meted out to those involved in some most serious cases.

People now still remember that at least a dozen babies in Fuyang City, east China's Anhui Province, starved after being fed on inferior milk powder last April, while hundreds of others incurred "big head" disease, a medical complication resulting from mal nutrition.

A total of 97 persons in local governments and supervision departments were involved in the scandal and penalized, according to the Chinese Ministry of Supervision.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2005)