The Green Party wants the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to enhance its product protection regime to counter "emerging risks" in the market.

The party's consumer affairs spokeswoman, Sue Kedgley, said today briefing papers to incoming minister Heather Roy acknowledged that globally there was a 47 percent increase in "serious risk" notifications from 2006 to 2007.

She said the papers, released yesterday, showed 50 percent of 472 products that were recalled last year came from China.

"That's a huge increase in one year and it shows that our present passive system, based on waiting for consumers to complain about unsafe products, is woefully inadequate," Ms Kedgley said.

"We need to beef up our regime so that we can ensure that imported products are safe and don't pose a risk to consumers."

Ms Kedgley said the recently-signed free trade agreement with China meant more and more consumer products were entering New Zealand.

She said the papers noted that products safety risks were increasing, partly as a result of the growing number of products manufactured in newly-industrialised countries.

"Other countries are responding to the increased risk of these products entering their markets by intensifying their consumer protection strategies and New Zealand must follow suit," Ms Kedgley said.

When Ms Roy released the papers she said her aim was to ensure New Zealand's product safety regime was appropriate and struck the right balance between consumer choice and protection.

"High levels of consumer confidence in product safety frameworks enhance support for open borders, free trade and innovation," she said.

"This is beneficial to individual consumers and also the New Zealand economy."