China revises national standard that provides general rules on overpackaging of goods 
On April 25, 2024, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation published a revised version of the recommended national standard, “Restricting Excessive Packaging for Commodity—General Rule” (GB/T 31268) — a standard for restricting the overpackaging of goods.
The revised standard has a more specific scope that just covers retail packaging, and has new provisions on principles for choosing packaging materials, the number of packaging layers, and conformity declaration by companies. The revision will come into effect Nov. 1, 2024.
In recent years, China has introduced stricter regulations on overpackaging. In addition to the above standard, it has two mandatory national standards in place that regulate the overpackaging of food and cosmetics, and perishable agricultural products, respectively.
