A campaign last month by quality-control officials led to more than 700 toy manufacturers in Guangdong Province having their export quality certificates suspended or revoked.

A number of other factories have been told to renovate their facilities, the Guangdong quality technology supervision administration said yesterday.

The administration con-ducted a province-wide investigation into the quality and safety of toys, food and other products. It spent 15 million yuan (US$1.9 million) and dispatched more than 200,000 officials.

The investigation covered agricultural products, food, restaurants, medicine, pork and a range of export products including toys.

Officials investigated 1,726 toy factories, almost 85 percent of the province's total, that had obtained quality certifications for exporting products.

Because of various quality problems, 764 factories had their certificates revoked or suspended.

A further 690 were ordered to renovate their manufacturing facilities and improve product quality within a set period of time.

"More than 99 percent of export products from Guangdong are qualified." Lai Tiansheng, director of the administration, said.

The quality of pork is also a major concern for most local people.

Lai said investigations found only a small portion of the pork in the market had problems. Bad goods were confiscated and destroyed.

By the end of September, 1,923 designated pig slaughterhouses were operating in the province, 150 of which were shut down by investigators in September.

The investigators also checked 56,154 restaurants and cafeterias and found 98.54 percent purchased their pork from designated slaughterhouses.

"We are happy most pork consumers are using meat from designated slaughterhouses. That means our investigation of slaughterhouses can effectively block the distribution of problem pork," Lai said.

For food processing and circulation, the campaign allocated "greater manpower" to investigate private and small-sized food processing workshops and markets.

For restaurants, investigators targeted smaller operations that do not have operating licenses and sanitary certificates.

"The campaign has broken down a large number of unqualified product manufacturers and sellers. But the investigation work is long-term task," Lai said.

(China Daily November 1, 2007)