Eleven toy companies received China Compulsory Certification (CCC) marks for their products on Monday in Shantou City, Guangdong Province.

 

The compulsory product certification scheme is a quality appraisal system which has been established by governments to protect consumers' personal safety, the safety of animals and plants, the environment and national security. It’s stipulated that only with a certification mark can certain products be imported and sold.

 

According to a Xinhua report on April 11, since 2002 China has issued four batches of CCC marks covering auto products, home appliances, electrical wiring, wireless networks, decoration and fitments and security technology. 

 

Last year the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Regulatory Commission for Certification and Accreditation jointly issued a document, which subjects six types of toys, including baby carriages, those which were electrical, those which shot projectiles, toys made of metal, dolls and plastic products, to the CCC scheme as of June 1, 2007. On March 1 this year, three authorized certification and 15 inspection institutions began to receive applications for CCC marks from toy firms and to do product testing on commission.

 

Most of the eleven firms which have obtained CCC marks are from the Chenghai District of Shantou City. More than 3,000 toy firms operate in the district.

 

China Toy Association said on Tuesday that this year the toy export industry had continued to grow. In January and February the export volume was US$1.788 billion -- an increase of 20.6 percent over the same period last year, Chinanews reported on Wednesday.

 

The association said the leading market for toy exports was the United States. Last year more than 38 percent of China's exported toys were sold to the US. Of European countries the UK had shown biggest increase in imports of Chinese toys with a year-on-year rise of 50 percent.

 

In Asia, besides Japan and South Korea, as a newly developed free trade area, the import levies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will gradually come down and exports of China's toys will go up.

 

Export of the TV-supported video game players and other similar game players is rising sharply with a year-on-year increase of 41 percent and 275 percent respectively in 2005. They hold first and second places in the export league. As updates of the products continue, these high-tech toys are proving most popular in the international market.

 

The toy business of Guangdong Province accounts for 80 percent of the country's toy export total.

 

(China.org.cn by Zhou Jing, April 14, 2006)