Fake goods flood rural areas, so regulation must also reach down to the rural market
The New Year is approaching, and everyone is busy buying New Year goods. Farmer friends who have returned home from work must be careful when shopping, because in our country's rural market, a kind of chaos has reached shocking levels: here “Kangshuaifu” becomes “Kangshifu”, “Xiaotiane” becomes “Xiaoyao'e”, “Wahaha” becomes “Waqiaqia”…… A careless shopper may fall into a fake-goods trap at any moment, because some knockoff and shoddy products look extremely similar to brand-name products from the outside packaging. In recent years, some lawless traders have wantonly made and sold fake goods in rural areas, turning rural areas into a paradise for selling fakes. It is said that half of our country's fake and shoddy goods are sold to rural markets.
Why do fake goods run rampant in rural areas? This is related to our country's farmers having low incomes and being extremely sensitive to prices, and also to farmers' insufficient ability to identify fake goods. At present, counterfeiting technology is increasingly sophisticated, and product imitation is highly realistic, making it impossible to distinguish genuine from fake and shoddy goods. Low-quality, low-priced counterfeit and shoddy products in rural areas create a phenomenon in which bad money drives out good money, and good goods and genuine goods find it hard to enter.
In fact, knockoffs are not frightening; what is frightening is the absence of the main body responsible for market safety regulation. To truly solve the current rampant fake goods in our country's rural areas, the regulatory system must also go to the countryside. Rural areas are the very end of product quality and safety, and are also the most prone to problems. Our country currently has a urban-rural dual structure. In the past, the main body and focus of market regulatory institutions have always been concentrated in cities, and the rural market has in fact formed a regulatory vacuum. This is also the main reason why the dilemma of rural areas as a paradise for selling fakes has never been solved. Therefore, to truly solve the rampant counterfeit and shoddy products in rural areas, the focus of work of current market regulatory departments such as industry and commerce and quality inspection must shift downward from cities to rural areas, changing the past pattern in which the main body of market regulation did not enter villages, so that rural areas can enjoy regulatory services just like cities. Only by breaking the current urban-rural dual division, forming an upright integrated urban-rural regulatory structure, and having formal market regulatory institutions stationed in rural areas can those who make and sell fakes truly have no opportunity to exploit, no profit to gain, and nowhere to hide. Rural areas must be regulated just like cities, with supervision and management responsibilities implemented, regional boundaries broken down, monthly inspections and daily spot checks carried out, rapid response ensured, and severe punishments imposed on those who sell fakes. Only then will rural areas stop being constantly occupied by those who make and sell fakes.
Well-known supermarkets must also go to the countryside. Many rural areas in our country do not have decent shops, and much of farmers' consumption takes place in small vendors and individually run small shops set up by farmers. These small shops generally seek only cheapness in purchasing and find it hard to control purchasing channels and product quality. To ensure the consumer rights and interests of rural consumers, we should thoroughly crack down on the sources of counterfeit and shoddy products flowing to rural areas, continue to improve quality circulation service projects going to the countryside such as “Ten Thousand Villages, Thousand Townships”, encourage and support well-known chain supermarkets to open stores in rural areas, and let farmer friends in rural areas also enjoy low-priced, high-quality consumer products with unified distribution, unified labeling, and quality guarantees, just as in cities.
Anti-counterfeiting publicity must also go to the countryside. Only by making farmers strengthen their awareness of self-protection can incidents of shoddy products cheating and harming farmers be fundamentally eliminated. It is necessary to strengthen publicity and education for farmers on identifying fakes, use various media, expose the true face of fake and shoddy products, and keep farmers from being confused by fake goods and tempted by interests. Farmers should be helped to master scientific identification methods, and guided to actively ask sellers for sales invoices and other physical evidence when purchasing.
Reporting and rights protection must also go to the countryside. The reason counterfeit and shoddy products run rampant in rural areas is related to farmers' insufficient awareness of rights protection. Many farmers who buy shoddy goods and suffer harm often simply accept their bad luck. Conditions should be created so that farmers can defend their rights and are willing to defend their rights, for example by setting up rural consumer complaint stations and rights protection liaison stations, forming a regulatory network of “rights protection without leaving the village, rights protection without leaving the community”, and solving the current problem of farmers finding it difficult to defend their rights after buying fakes.