Toys News
- Toy producer Lee Derin limbo after recall
Date: 27-Sep-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
OPERATION of a Chinese toymaker has come to a full stop after its U.S. partner Mattel Inc. recalled about 1 million lead-tainted toys.
More than 2,500 employees with the Lee Der Plastic Toys Co. Ltd. based in Foshan City of Guangdong Province, which is a longtime contract manufacturer of Mattel, are temporarily laid off without pay since Mattel announced the recall early last month.
Export business was suspended and toys worth about 50 million yuan (US$6.7 million) have been overstocked, resulting in a halt of capital inflow, said Xie Yuguang, board chairman of Lee Der.
Lee Der's boss Cheung Shu-Hung hanged himself Aug. 11 after paying off due salaries to all employees and sending them home.
It was estimated that the factory, which had been producing toys to Mattel for more than 10 years without any bad records, would suffer 30 million yuan in economic losses.
'We have been trusting our subcontractors and failed to conduct tests on paint materials,'said Xie Yuguang, board chairman of Lee Der.
Initial investigation shows that Zhongxin factory, based in Dongguan City, had fabricated safe quality license for color powders - the key component for producing paint - that contains excessive lead.
Police have detained four Chinese suspects who are alleged to supply substandard paint to Lee Der Plastic Toys Co. Ltd.
About 70 percent of toys in Guangdong are made for overseas clients according to their design and requirements, said Zhang Xiaolue, an official with the Guangdong Provincial Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
'Both sides should shoulder the responsibility of supervising the whole process of production, including material quality,'said Guo Zhuocai, vice chairman with China Toy Association.
Xie blamed foreign media for playing up the quality issue which placed Lee Der in a hopeless situation.
A senior official with the European retail giant Carrefour on Tuesday asked foreign media to stop exaggerating quality problems of made-in-China products, claiming that such reports would not affect Carrefour's purchase in China.
Jean-Luc Chereau, adviser to the chairman of the management board of the Carrefour Group and president of the Carrefour (China) Foundation for Food Safety, told a symposium held in Southwest China's Sichuan Province that more than 95 percent of goods sold in Carrefour's Chinese outlets come from local suppliers, and 99 percent of them are up to safety and quality standards.
'When a case of substandard products occurred in China, media coverage on the case often led to an impression that all Chinese products had problems, which could not reflect the whole situation and should be contained,'Chereau said.
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