With the increasing concern of children safety in terms of playing toys, many toy imported countries as well as China started setting up new compulsory standards for toy manufacturers to follow.

As the biggest production base for toy exporting, Shenzhen toy makers are advised to actively prepare for stricter standards. A China-EU toy safety forum, to be held in Shenzhen in July, is part of China and EU's mutual efforts to strengthen safety of toys exported from China to EU.

As China's second largest toy exporting destination, EU continuously sets all sorts of technical regulations on toy production. The newly revised toy safety directive put up by EU set even stricter demands on toys imported to EU markets.

The RoHS Directive, Restriction of Hazardous Substances, formulated by the European Union restricts the use of six hazardous substances including lead, cadmium, and mercury in electronic products. The directive will come into force from next month. Following the directive toys containing more than agreed levels of those substances will be banned from the EU market.

The latest issue of Toys World, a national magazine of toy industries in China, publicized a bunch of toys made in China that were recently warned of hidden dangers by EU and the United States.

In April China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Health and Consumer Protection of EU signed a draft of Guide to the Strengthening of Sino-EU Coopeartive Action for Toy Safety.

Robert Madelin, director general of EU's Health and Consumer Protection, said that under the supervision of RAPEX --- Rapid Alert System for Non-Food Products, many products made in China were considered to "have put consumers in serious dangers".

According to information provided by EU, one among four of the "problematic imported products" under the supervision of RAPEX refers to toy products, with 85 percent of those problem toys coming from China.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)