China toy scare sparks safety testing frenzy
John RUWITCH
HONG KONG: Armed with pruning clippers, a worker in a white lab coat
snips a plastic Hello Kitty play set into lentil-sized bits that will be
bathed in chemicals simulating gastric acid.
A Chinese girl looks at the Barbie dolls on display for sale
inside a department store in Beijing. AP |
Down the hall, teddy bears are torched to clock how fast they go up
in flames, dolls are dropped to the ground from varying heights and tiny
green toy soldiers are jammed into metal cylinders with the
circumference of a child’s oesophagus.
The product safety testing business is in overdrive in the wake of a
string of high profile recalls of made-in-China toys, including Barbie
doll sets by industry giant Mattel Inc recalled earlier this month due
to excessive lead in paint.
“We’ve worked extra shifts (since) the day after Mattel started
putting out their notice,” said Ian Anderson, the Asia-Pacific director
of testing for toys and similar goods at Swiss inspection services firm
SGS.
The recalls have come amid a string of safety scandals in China
fanning worries across the board among consumers fearful of lead in
their kids’ toys, among major brands concerned about their reputation
and share price, and among contract manufacturers in China who rely on
those big brands for business.
To the companies that make their money from product safety testing
such as SGS, Intertek and France’s Bureau Veritas the safety scandals,
most due to faulty design rather than substandard craftsmanship, have
translated into a windfall.
Cardboard boxes full of toys stacked along the walls of SGS’s lab in
Hong Kong attest to the huge opportunity, especially as toy factories in
China work at full capacity to fill and ship orders to the West in time
for the Christmas season.
“It’s good for the inspection and testing business, yes. Anything
that comes with additional tests is good overall for our type of
business,” Anderson said.
At Intertek, an official said toy testers had been “extremely busy”
lately.
But the manic testing is squeezing already wafer-thin margins for the
factories in China that supply 80 percent of the world’s toys with no
guarantee that every defect will be caught.
China is battling a torrent of warnings and recalls that have shaken
international markets’ confidence in the “made-in-China” label on
products from toothpaste and tyres to candy and catfish.
Mattel made an unprecedented apology to China last week for damaging
China’s reputation after its recalls. It admitted that most of the
problems didn’t originate in factories but were due to design flaws.
Nevertheless, China’s Administration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine ordered stronger supervision and now requires
toy exporters to provide lab test reports from recognised labs with each
shipment.
For manufacturers of toys in China, working on such narrow margins,
that’s an extra cost they can’t afford. Leona Lam, CEO of Leconcepts
Holding Co Ltd, a Hong Kong firm that manufactures toys for export in
the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, said the marginal cost of each
extra item tested to meet the Chinese government’s new rule was not
particularly high, but it could add up over time.
“They are asking for every one,” she said. “Before this maybe once a
year, randomly they would have such procedures.” “If it’s just for a few
months it should be OK,” she said, adding that the more costly aspect
was in shipment delays.
SGS’s Anderson said there were about 10,000 toy factories in China,
most in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, and that increased testing
was already leading to a crunch.
“Some of the people now are finding that they cannot possibly do all
of the testing within the timeframe and still ship their goods and get a
good return for it. Remember that this is the peak period of the year,”
he said.
Major toy companies sourcing in China are asking for more samples to
test, too.
And governments around the globe, including the United States,
Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Australia, are either considering,
or enacting, new measures to guarantee quality standards, which could
lead to even more testing.
“China faces huge challenges in enforcing adherence to U.S. safety
standards in products it exports to this country,” said Donald Mays,
senior director of product safety planning and technical administration
for the U.S.-based Consumers Union.
“However, we are encouraged by the fact that U.S. toy manufacturers
and retailers have indicated that they want federally mandated
third-party testing of children’s products.”
Does the testing binge keep quality up?
“It makes people more aware. You have to be good; don’t play tricks;
people are watching you,” Lam said.
But Dane Chamorro, regional general manager for Greater China and
North Asia for the consultancy Control Risks, said there were no quality
guarantees if factories are picking what they want to be tested.
“Anybody can say: ‘I took my products to the lab and they came back
with a clear bill of health,’” he said. “If it is self-selected, you are
not going to solve the problem.”
And despite increased testing, the amount of products in the toy
market is so huge that it’s unlikely the industry will ever be
completely problem free.
“With ... up to 30,000 different toys in the market at any one time,
you’ve got to believe that there’s going to be a few of them that may
not be up to standard,” Anderson said. “Right now it’s convenient to
beat up China, which is wrong. It doesn’t deserve it.”.
Reuters
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