Peru seizes ‘toxic’ toys

There have been a number of health scares around a range of Chinese-made products in recent months, from toys painted with lead-based paints, toxic toothpaste ingredients to faulty tires, pet food and seafood.

In the United States there have been several recalls of Chinese-made toys, including 970,000 recalled last month by Fisher-Price and 1.5 million wooden “Thomas the Train” figures by RC2 Corp.

In Peru, Chinese-made toys have steadily increased their share of the market from 56.5 per cent in 2000 to 78.1 per cent last year, when the imports were valued at $45.4m, according to a study by the Catholic University’s Business Centre.

Earlier this week, Peru recalled all Fisher-Price toys in the country after the distributor announced its recall in the United States.

Beijing said on Wednesday that it was spending more than $1bn dollars on strengthening the supervision of its food and drug industries.