China starts recall system for food, toys

Beset by safety scandals, Beijing says it will begin requiring manufacturers to stop production and alert the public when defects are found.
August 31 2007: 3:45 PM EDT
BEIJING (AP) -- -- China's first nationwide recall system for unsafe food and toys came into effect Friday in one of the strongest steps taken by Beijing to clean up the country's scandal-hit manufacturing industry.
China, a major global supplier, has been facing growing international pressure to improve the quality of its exports after dangerous toxins - from lead to an antifreeze ingredient - were found in goods, including toys and toothpaste.
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At home, scares have centered around fake milk powder that led to the deaths of at least a dozen babies and the use of the banned cancer-causing industrial dye, Sudan Red, to color egg yolks.
The recall systems, put in place by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, follow an earlier system set up for defective cars in 2005.
They require manufacturers to stop production and sales, notify vendors and customers, and report to quality control authorities when defects are found.
The administration oversees all products made in China and the measure appears to be targeted at goods manufactured for both domestic and global consumption.
The administration said food producers should voluntarily recall any potentially harmful products and investigate immediately. It will force a recall and issue a consumer alert if manufacturers fail to take actions or if a food safety incident occurs, the administration said.
The toy recall system requires producers to stop making and selling toys that are confirmed to have problems, even if the products are made in accordance with Chinese laws and standards, the agency said.
It will "provide a powerful legal weapon for protection of children's health and life safety," the administration said.
While authorities were initially reluctant to address the issue, the government has launched several sweeping measures in recent weeks focused on cleaning up shoddy manufacturing practices and cracking down on illegal businesses at the heart of recent safety scandals.
Chinese-made toys came under new scrutiny this summer after a series of high-profile recalls by Mattel Inc., the world's largest toy maker.
Blame U.S. too, China says
The latest centered around 18.2 million Batman figures, Polly Pocket dolls and Barbie play sets, which were pulled from the shelves because of a revision of international standards in May that required safety warnings for toys with magnets or magnetic components not attached tightly.
Another 436,000 "Sarge" cars, based on a character from the movie "Cars," were also recalled because they contained lead.
Two weeks earlier, Mattel ordered a global recall on 1.5 million Fisher-Price infant toys that were made in China because of lead-contaminated paint. In June, about 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden railway toys, imported from China and distributed by the RC2 Corp., were recalled also because of lead paint.
Chinese officials have said Mattel should share a large part of the blame because of insufficient inspections and poor designs on its part.
The safety administration also announced Friday that it had detected harmful pine wood parasites in 13 batches of wooden packages used for U.S.-imported goods this year.
Daimler, BMW may sue over China 'copycats'
China has increased the number of announcements of substandard imports in recent weeks in an apparent effort to show that other countries also have problems with quality.
The European Commission said Friday that the European Union's food safety chief, Markos Kyprianou, will meet with Chinese officials from Sept. 6 to Sept. 14 to talk about ways to help them track down problem products.
The EU's executive arm said the meeting with Li Changjiang, the head of the Chinese governmental agency for quality supervision, inspection and quarantine, would discuss Chinese seafood - where U.S. and European authorities have found high doses of a carcinogenic antibiotic given to farmed fish - as well as protein-rich animal feed contaminated with melamine, a toxic industrial chemical.