INSIGHT: China uproar is not child's play

06 August 2007 16:58  [Source: ICIS news]

By Joe Chang

NEW YORK (ICIS news)--With all the hubbub about imports of tainted Chinese goods and chemicals, it’s hard to find a silver lining.

Reports of toothpaste with diethylene glycol (DEG), pet food spiked with melamine and now toys coated with lead paint have rocked the global public’s confidence in Chinese exports.

Just last week US toy maker Fisher-Price announced the recall of an astonishing 83 brands, encompassing 1.5m toys worldwide, because of lead paint. They were made by a Chinese vendor.

The action follows another recent high profile recall by toy maker RC2, which recalled 1.5m wooden railroad toys made in China, also because of lead paint. Consumers, without doubt, have been outraged.

Worldwide, governments, consumer product firms and chemical distributors are taking notice, and will tighten their screening of materials sourced from China.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), for instance, is working with Chinese government agencies to boost product inspections and identify Chinese manufacturers of dangerous consumer products.

What can the chemical industry do to ensure product quality and safety?

China is a developing country and its economic, legal and social systems are stressed. But sourcing goods from China is really no different than sourcing them from anywhere else.

About 67% of all US product recalls are imports and the majority of them are from China.

The CPSC says US imports of consumer goods from China were worth $26bn last year and accounted for 40% of all US consumer product imports.

In 2006, 48% of all notified dangerous consumer products, such as toys, electrical appliances, motor vehicles, lighting equipment and cosmetics were Chinese imports, according to the European Commission.

You want to make sure that suppliers meet your standards so ultimately there will be a need for more quality testing and this will add to costs. The current situation has been brought about by the desire for lower prices.

Yet purchasing professionals and the standards they invoke their supplier to adhere to have more clout than any government imposed restrictions, as president of the US distributor Charkitt Chemical Charles Hinnant points out in the latest edition of ICIS Chemical Business.

"I am sure in the long term these issues will be resolved through economics, so I hope the US government will not interfere by imposing unnecessary regulations," said Hinnant.

The detrimental impact of negative publicity and fears about Chinese goods is not lost on the country's government – the economy is dependent on export growth. But at times an apparent lack of resources and personnel obscure a willingness to act.

Yet, the recent execution of China’s former drug and food safety chief sends a clear signal that the government is serious about cracking down.

Ultimately, the bad publicity must lead to action. Otherwise, “made in China” will come to mean “buyer beware”

Doris de Guzman contributed to this story

By: Joseph Chang
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