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TRADE INSPECTION
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• For as many as 57 years, Trade Inspection has
  been acting in various economic, political and
  social conditions
• for the benefit of a well-functioning Polish
  internal market,
• protecting the interest of consumers,
• supervising the quality and safety of products.

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TERRITORIAL STRUCTURE

• Chief Inspectorate of TI
• Voivodeship Inspectorates of TI
• Branches of TI

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• Trade Inspection means 1,500 employees working
  for
• Chief Inspectorate,
• including 9 laboratories,
• 16 Voivodeship inspectorates,
• including 35 branches.

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STRUCTURE
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THE TASKS OF TRADE INSPECTION INCLUDE

• inspection of legality and reliability of
  entrepreneurs conducting business activity in the
  sense of regulations separate within the range of
  production, trade and services,
• inspection of products within business trade or
  earmarked for introduction into business trade,
  including labelling, forging and inspection of
  services,
• mediation in order to protect the interest and
  rights of consumers,
• organizing and running standing consumer
  arbitration courts,
• consumer counselling service,
• performing other tasks stipulated by acts or
  separate regulations.
• The abovementioned inspection does not include
  trade quality inspection of agricultural and food
  articles at the producers site.

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The range of activity of the Chief Inspector

• organizing and coordinating inspection on the
  national scale,
• controlling the realization by voivodeship
  inspectors of tasks and activities stipulated by
  the act or separate regulations,
• giving guidelines and recommendations in order to
  ensure uniformity of Inspection activity as well
  as supervising their realization, organizing
  training for inspectors,
• drawing up projects of legal acts regulating the
  field of activity of the Inspection,
• conducting analyses and evaluations of the
  functioning of the market as well as the state of
  protection of the interest and rights of
  consumers for the needs of the government
  administration authorities,
• conducting monitoring and running analytical
  laboratories of the Inspection,
• international cooperation with inspection
  services of a similar character,
• realization of tasks and activities stipulated by
  separate regulations..

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ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF CHIEF INSPECTORATE
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LABORATORIES OF CHIEF INSPECTORATE

• Within the framework of Chief Inspectorate, six
  accredited monitoring and analytical laboratories
  of food products operate in
• Katowice,
• Kielce,
• Olsztyn,
• Poznan,
• Warszawa,
• Wroclaw.
• Moreover, there operate three accredited
  specialist monitoring and analytical laboratories
  of non-food products
• Specialist Laboratory of Fuels and Domestic
  Detergents Inspection in Bydgoszcz (with a
  separate Laboratory of Fuel Inspection and a
  Laboratory of Domestic Detergents Products
  Inspection),
• Specialist Laboratory of Toys Inspection in
  Lublin,
• Specialist Laboratory of Textile Articles and
  Instrumental Analysis in Lódz (with a separate
  Laboratory of Textile Products and Instrumental
  Analysis Laboratory).

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STRUCTURE OF VOIVODESHIP INSPECTORATE
VOIVODESHIP INSPECTOR
Deputy Voivodeship Inspector of TI
Legal and Organizational Division
Inspection Division
Branch
Budget and Administration Division
Branch
Branch
Inspection Division
Inspection Unit
Secretariat SCAC (standing consumer arbitration
courts)
Inspection Unit
Inspection Unit
Consumer Protection Division
Legal Matters Post
Legal Matters Post
Legal Matters Post
Consumer Protection Matters Post
Consumer Protection Matters Post
Consumer Protection Matters Post
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LEGAL MEANS OF THE INSPECTION IN ORDER TO
ELIMINATE IRREGULARITIES

• Giving orders concerning
• restrictions of introduction into business trade,
• withholding introduction into business trade,
• withdrawal from business trade
• Post-inspection pronouncements
• Imposing fines
• Taking cases to county courts
• Taking cases to law enforcement bodies.

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INSPECTION ACTIVITY

• Realizing the objective of safe and consumer
  friendly market, Trade Inspection conducts
  inspections of issues concerning
• safety of products in the range of fulfilling
  fundamental and general safety requirements,
• trade quality of food products,
• fuel quality,
• observing regulations of consumer sale, including
  consumers right to reliable information about
  the product (its qualities, price, quantity),
• quality of services,
• legality of entrepreneurs activity.

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Every year, depending on the scope of inspection,
the Inspection inspects up to 30 thousand
entrepreneurs
16385 retail outlets
400 markets
1321 large-size shops
1895 wholesale companies
1543 catering firms
43 warehouses
598 production plants
1321 service firms
The chart shows the structure of subjects
inspected in 2006.
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INSPECTION ACTIVITY

• Irregularities found during inspections conducted
  in 2007 gave grounds for
• issuing 993 decisions on the basis of art.18 and
  art.32 of the act concerning Trade Inspection,
• submitting 6403 demands to entrepreneurs to
  eliminate irregularities,
• submitting 705 notifications to law enforcement
  bodies, as a result of which 429 criminal
  proceedings have been instituted,
• imposing 11,090 fines to the total amount of
  1,833.6 thousand zlotys,
• lodging 737 motions to law courts for punishment
  of offenders, the result of which was
  adjudication of fines to the total amount of
  377.2 thousand zlotys,
• submitting 432 cases to revenue offices and
  boards, 607 cases to State Sanitary Inspection
  and 3656 to other authorities

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NEW APPROACH DIRECTIVES

• Trade Inspection having the role of a specialized
  body in the field of products included in 13 new
  approach directives, conducts inspection activity
  aimed at eliminating from the national market
  products which fail to fulfil the essential
  requirements stipulated by the national
  regulations implementing resolutions of
  particular new approach directives.
• Inspection in the field of market supervision in
  2007 concerned 13755 products in 3248 subjects.
• The result of inspections conducted, was finding
  various irregularities, including
• incompatibility with essential requirements (12
  of inspected subjects),
• lack of labelling with CE sign (1.3 of inspected
  subjects),
• improper labelling with CE sign (1 of inspected
  subjects),
• lack of declaration of conformity (1,6 of
  inspected subjects),
• improperly made declaration of conformity (3,5
  of inspected subjects),
• other lack of information required, warnings
  etc. (12 of inspected subjects.

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FUEL INSPECTION

• Fundamental objectives of inspections of liquid
  fuel quality realized by Trade Inspection were
• eliminating from business trade liquid fuels and
  bio-fuels failing to fulfil quality requirements,
• statistical monitoring of quality of liquid fuels
  introduced into business trade (European system),
• gathering data necessary to draw up annual
  reports submitted to the Council of ministers and
  European Commission.

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Results of fuel inspection concerning the years
2003-2006
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FOOD INSPECTION

• In 2007, altogether 9148 inspections were
  carried out at the entrepreneurs conducting
  trade, services and production activity within
  the field of food products and catering services.
• Altogether 300 thousand of batches of food
  products, and drinks and articles for catering
  were inspected in 2007.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• Trade Inspection has established contacts with
  similar organizations and services in many
  European Union countries.
• Inspection representatives visited
• France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Belgium,The
  Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus, Portugal,
  Spain, Estonia, Greece.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• Within Wyszehrad Group, inspections from Hungary,
  The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland
  established relations in order to exchange
  experience and increase activity effectiveness.

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MEDIATION AND COUNSELING

• About 10 thousand mediations are carried out
  yearly by Trade Inspection,
• over 66 of cases are dealt with for the benefit
  of consumers.
• Inspection specialists give almost 188 thousand
  pieces of advice yearly, including
• 75 to consumers,
• 25 to entrepreneurs.

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STANDING CONSUMER ARBITRATION COURTS AT TRADE
INSPECTION CONSUMER ARBITRATION

• At Voivodeship Inspectorates of TI there operate
  16 standing consumer arbitration courts and 15
  centers in other places.
• Annually, 2.7 thousand cases are lodged to law
  courts
• As the court proceedings need mutual consent, in
  about 30 of cases, entrepreneurs do not agree to
  arbitration settlement
• The average cost of dispute is about 1,000 zlotys
• About 400 sentences are pronounced half of
  which are for the benefit of consumers
• In other cases, settlement is reached

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INSPECTION VERSUS THE MEDIA

• The Inspection considers cooperation with the
  media very significant, as by means of it,
  informative and educational functions are
  performed.
• Consumers are informed about their rights and
  means of enforcing their claims in the case of
  disputes with entrepreneurs.
• By means of the media consumers are informed
  about irregularities revealed as a result of
  inspections conducted by the Inspection.

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INSPECTION VERSUS THE MEDIA

• Annually, about 3 thousand publications
  concerning the functioning of the Inspection are
  issued, including
• 50 of press publications,
• 40 of radio broadcasts,
• 10 of TV broadcasts.

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INFORMATIVE ACTIVITY

• Chief Inspectorate issues a quarterly entitled
  Bulletin of Trade Inspection which is devoted to
  presentation of current activity of the
  Inspection and ensures journalistic reference to
  problems that the Inspection is facing on the
  part of employees and people taking care of
  consumer issues.
• In each issue we have in our pages prominent
  representatives of the world of politics,
  science, social and economic life.

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• Thank you for your attention!