Chinese language - FDI grows steadily this year

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BIZCHINA / Top Biz News

FDI grows steadily this year

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-14 09:07

Actual foreign direct investment (FDI) in China maintained steady growth
in the first eight months and government agencies are investigating the
latest batch of "Made in China" toy recalls, a senior commerce official
said yesterday.

The Ministry of Commerce approved 24,848 foreign-invested enterprises in
the past eight months, with actual spending rising 12.79 percent
year-on-year to US$41.95 billion, ministry spokesman Wang Xinpei told a
news conference.

For August alone, realized FDI in China jumped to US$5.02 billion, up
11.87 percent from a year earlier. The ministry did not release the
statistics for contracted foreign investments.

Wang said the Ministry of Commerce had dispatched teams to Dongguan and
Shenzhen in Guangdong Province after it learned about the latest toy
recall case in the United States.

Toy giant Mattel recalled around 848,000 toys earlier this month - its
third recall of Chinese products this summer - because of the high lead
content in the paints used.

The latest recall follows a similar move last month, when the company
recalled 18 million Chinese-made products worldwide over high lead levels
and small magnets that have allegedly injured at least three children.

"Our initial investigation shows all the recalled toys are products under
original equipment manufacturing and were exported in processing trade.
Three companies in Guangdong were involved in Mattel's third recall,"
Wang said.

He said the products in question were made according to US
specifications, adding that the government will conduct further
investigations and punish whoever is accountable.

"These are stray cases, considering the fact that there are 8,000
toymakers in China and the quality of China-made toys in general is
reliable," Wang said. "As toys concern children's health, we are treating
each case seriously, regardless of whether the case is one out of a
hundred or one out of a thousand."

The government also urged toymakers to improve their quality control
system to meet both Chinese quality standards and those set by importing
countries.

Large-scale training courses on quality enhancement are being held in
Jiangsu and other provinces famous for toy exports.

Canadian business professor Hari Bapuji recently said most recalls of
toys made in China are due to design errors, not manufacturing flaws.

We should be asking the toymakers: 'Are you guys learning from the errors
you are making? What are your systems to test? What are your systems to
make sure that an error doesn't get repeated in the future?'" he said in
an interview on Canadian Television recently.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)

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