Cooperation on Product Safety Controls

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ) and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) in cooperation with 10 EEA countries, will start to recognize each other’s control information to guarantee toy safety and reduce overlap in controls. An agreement for this purpose will be/has been signed by State Secretary van Rijn of the Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and Minister Zhi Shuping of AQSIQ. The signing was witnessed by H.E. King Willem Alexander, H.E. Queen Maxima and President Xi Jinping. Under the agreement, AQSIQ will certify Authorized Toy Manufacturers (ATM’s) based on agreed safety criteria. Toys from these ATM's will fall in a reduced regular-control scheme in the Netherlands. Toy testing laboratories in China and Europe will launch a comparison program to guarantee the quality of test results. This means that the European import control authorities can focus their efforts on other goods that are less likely to be safe . This all results in better consumer protection and increased trade flows by minimizing overlap in Governmental controls.
The signing was the conclusion of five years of development between AQSIQ and the NVWA.

Back ground.
After five years of development the Chinese Authority AQSIQ and 10 European Authorities (including Neytendastofa) led by the Dutch NVWA and supported by the European Commission, start practically working together to improve the safety of consumer goods and reduce overlap in governmental controls.

With the signing of this agreement, parties agree on criteria toy manufacturers need to fulfill to be authorized as Authorized Toy Manufacturer (ATM) by AQSIQ.

The fulfillment of these criteria by a manufacturer, checked and accredited by AQSIQ, should guarantee the safety of toys exported to Europe.

Toys from these ATM-companies will fall in a reduced regular-import safety-control scheme in the Netherlands, due to the recognition of control information of AQSIQ by the NVWA.

With this agreement, The Netherlands act at the same time as the pilot-country of the European Prosafe project. With this project, consumers are better protected and overlap in controls will minimize. This means that the European import control authorities can focus their efforts on other goods that are less likely to be safe.

The outcomes of this project can lead to the extensions of this cooperation to other European Member States as well as to other products, like electrical appliances.

This project runs hand in hand with the Laboratory Comparison Programme where 11 Chinese and 25 European laboratories work together to guarantee and improve the quality of toy testing laboratories. This program is also part of the European/China joint action on consumer product safety.

The overall aim is to increase the cooperation between authorities throughout the world so they can use intelligence from each other to target their controls as efficiently as possible on those goods that compromise the safety of the consumers and the wealth of our societies.