Kuala Lumpur, 6 August 2020 – According to research done by Hong Leong Investment Bank, the rapid growth of vaping has created a major new industry of producers, distributors and retailers serving at least half a million of Malaysia's 4.6 million smokers, naturally tagging along a trend of counterfeit products flowing into the country - posing serious health risk to consumers who think they are purchasing authentic vaping products. With this rise of production in counterfeit vaping devices and e-liquids not stopping anytime soon, Asia's leading e-cigarette manufacturer RELX Technology is determined to do its part to fight the counterfeit problem in Malaysia by collaborating with the authorities and other members of the ecosystem.
Counterfeit vape products are becoming more rampant in Malaysia, allowing illegal vendors to take advantage of the growing market. These products may also contain harmful substances that could cause risk of injury or death to the user. Mr Eddie Chew, Regional Director of External Affairs at RELX Technology said that this is a problem that needs to be tackled swiftly in order to protect the interests of Malaysian consumers.
“The government has yet to introduce proper legislation to regulate vaping products and e-cigarettes in Malaysia. The uncertain regulatory environment has made it easy for vendors of counterfeit vape products to flourish. These untested and unregulated products pose serious health and safety risks to consumers,” said Eddie.
RELX Technology is hoping to implement an initiative in Malaysia similar to their programme in China, called the Golden Shield Program established in August 2019. Under the Golden Shield Program, RELX successfully aided the Chinese authorities in solving 26 cases related to the production and sale of counterfeit vaping products. In June and July 2020, Chinese authorities, in collaboration with RELX, seized over 70,000 counterfeit e-cigarette products, with many of those goods bound for Southeast Asia including Malaysia.
“According to the test results done on the confiscated products in RELX’s laboratory, these illicit counterfeit or compatible pods often contain inferior e-liquid with harmful substances like toluene at levels that greatly exceed safety standards. Very often, the nicotine content does not even match what is advertised on the packaging.”
Counterfeit RELX devices engraved with a luxury brand's logo are also sold on popular social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram. As they are believed to be produced in uncertified factories, the batteries of these counterfeit devices have not been properly tested and pose risk of explosion when in use.
“We observed that the Golden Shield Program yielded very good results in China, and we hope to bring it to Malaysia where we could work with government agencies and industry partners,” explained Eddie. “Through this initiative, we hope to create more awareness among Malaysian consumers of the risks of counterfeit vape products, and do what we can to help government authorities take down the counterfeit vape industry.”
“We encourage our customers to only buy authentic products from authorised channels. They can scan QR codes on the packaging to verify the authenticity of RELX products and report any fake products that they come across,” Eddie concluded.
For more information on how to identify counterfeit vaping products, visitors can visit https://relxnow.com/pages/verify.
