Toy quality training

More than 1,000 people from China's toymaking industry attended a government-sponsored training session on the quality and safety of export toys last Thursday and Friday, the latest effort of the government to ensure the quality of exported toys.

During the two-day training sessions held in Guangdong, government officials and executives of transnational firms gave lectures on toy certificate systems and export test regulations and standards in China, the United States and Europe.

Toymakers, many from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian and Hong Kong, were also taught how to deal with lead levels and design flaws of their products.

China has come under spotlight amid a spate of export toy recalls. The most recent one was by the US toymaker Mattel, which this summer staged three separate recalls of Chinese-made toys, 87 percent of which were found to have loose magnets - a design defect by Mattel itself - and 13 percent of which contained excessive lead.

(China Daily 10/15/2007 page3)