By staff reporter Zhou Qiong

China's toy industry is facing higher export barriers, as the U.S. and the European Union (EU) are shoring up requirements concerning toys for children.

On August 14, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) revised its quality standards for toy products with issuance of the “Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.”

Stricter requirements include tighter limits on lead in toys. Under the new standard, the lead limit in paint and other surface coating materials was reduced to 0.009 percent of the total weight of a product, from the previous 0.06 percent. The total amount of lead allowed in a toy was lowered to 0.06 percent of the product weight, and will be decreased to 0.01 percent three years after the implementation of the act. The act also prohibits sale of toys which contain certain kinds of phthalate.

Nancy Nord, the acting chairman of the CPSC, told Caijing that the most important change for Chinese toy makers is a newly-added provision that will make a quality certificate issued by a qualified, independent laboratory a prerequisite to export beginning November 12. Currently, the CPSC only requires China's official quality certificate for toy exports.   

The quality of China-made toys has raised broad concern in the U.S. after a string of recent incidents. Nord told Caijing that the CPSC inspects 50 percent of the country's toy imports. In 2007, 60 percent of the inspected toys that came from China had to be recalled due to quality problems.

Meanwhile, the EU, seen by Chinese toy exporters as the strictest market, is also mulling additional requirements for toy imports.   

According to Maureen Logghe, the director in charge of Enterprise and Industry in the European Commission, the EU has decided to revise its rules concerning the material and security of toy. The EU already updated some regulations in January this year.

Chinese toy industry has been hurt badly since last August when U.S. toymaker Mattel Inc. recalled more than 18 million toys made by its Chinese suppliers. During the first seven months this year, China exported US$ 4.18 billion worth of toys, down 22.4 percent year on year. In Guangdong, the effectual center of the country’s toy industry, 3,600 small and medium sized toy companies have withdrawn from export market. That amounts to 78 percent of the total number of toy companies in the region.

To deal with increasing obstacles in international market, China is considering enhancing its own industry standards to boost product quality. According to Huang Lina, official from Toys Testing Lab of Guangdong Inspection & Quarantine Technology Center, the government is working on a revision of the national quality standards for toys that will "take the EU and U.S. requirements as a reference."