Vape Club Show: China's New Regulation is a Good News

On June 20, 2023, the Office of the State Tobacco Administration sent out a notification on the "Guidelines for Promoting the Building of Quality Assurance Systems for Exported Electronic Cigarette Products", which the key points of the guidelines include:

1. All e-cigarettes exported from China will need to comply with local regulatory legal requirements and need to be traceable throughout their inbound and outbound transport.
2. All Chinese exports of e-cigarettes that are investigated by authorities overseas for quality issues must be reported to the Tobacco Administration where the manufacturer is located and be subject to relevant investigations.
3. The State Tobacco Administration (STA) will establish a traceability system for exported e-cigarettes, Tobacco Bureaus at all levels should collaborate with Customs, market supervision, taxation and other departments to strengthen global supervision.

In response to this, 2FIRSTS interviewed Asia, the head of the largest electronic cigarette exhibition in Russia, to gather her thoughts on the "Guidelines".

Asia believes that this is good news for Russia. She stated that the Russian government has been regulating the electronic cigarette market for some time, but due to the majority of electronic cigarette products being manufactured in China, regulation has been challenging. However, the release of the "Guidelines" allows for effective regulation at the production end, which means that the quality of electronic cigarette products entering the Russian market from China will be effectively guaranteed, leading to significant improvements in the current market situation in Russia, which is primarily dominated by gray market products.

She also mentioned, 

"Perhaps over time, the governments of Russia and China will jointly establish quality standards for electronic cigarette products applicable to both countries. This will help promote the healthy development of the electronic cigarette markets in both countries and increase consumer confidence in product quality and safety."

Cover photo: Asya, head of Vape Club Show (right), and Xu Minghao, of 2FIRSTS (left) | This photo was taken at the Vape Club Show.