Qingdao Children's Clothing Exports Tighten Safety String Enterprises Must Self Check

Recently, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission adopted a new federal safety code for children's jackets, which came into effect in August 18th. Canada and the European Union have also issued new regulations for children's clothing and infant clothing, and have made more detailed and stricter regulations on related products. It is reported that in recent years, most of the clothing products recalled in China are children's clothing. Infant clothing 。

Test highlights change exposure Children's wear problem

Qingdao entry exit inspection Inspection According to the information of the epidemic Bureau, 4 batches of unqualified children's clothing and infant clothing were detected at Qingdao port this year. The problems of the 4 batch of unqualified export garments are all apparent safety problems. The main items are the drop of small parts, the length of the rope beyond the standard requirements and the sharp cutting-edge touches. Li Beilei, deputy director of the textile and light inspection department of Qingdao inspection and Quarantine Bureau, presented several children's clothes to reporters: "this is a small vest worn by children in summer, with decorative laces on the back of the neckline, which is more fashionable. But this is a typical rope problem, which is not allowed at home and abroad. Such problems occur frequently in export products. In addition, small swallowing parts such as buttons must be fixed and not easy to fall off.

It is reported that such problems exist in children's clothing and infant clothing products exported, mainly due to the lack of safety awareness in the design process, especially the export of children's clothing sold in Korea and the domestic market. At the same time, enterprises generally attach importance to main materials and ignore accessories. Qingdao inspection and Quarantine Bureau data show that not long ago, the European Union announced a number of children's cotton jacket sewing thread azo dye exceeded the standard limit requirements. After investigation, the company sent the fabric to third party inspection institutions for testing, but did not test the accessories such as sewing thread.

It is worth noting that the safety of children's products is even more important in testing. Chengyang District Danshan Industrial Park, a clothing production enterprise gold boss introduced: "children's clothing product safety is placed first, compared with adult clothing, its workmanship requirements are not so strict, so we must take the design link safety check as a key point."

Li Beilei told reporters that the focus of inspection and quarantine departments also changed. "Now, our inspection and quarantine work has also changed from focusing solely on product quality to focusing on product safety. Our offices have carried out risk analysis on the industry under supervision, and then focused on strengthening inspection and supervision of products in high-risk industries. Children's clothing and infant clothing that are liable to problems are one of the products of high-risk industries. "

Strict market requirements, enterprises must self check

In people's traditional impression, the quality requirements of various products abroad are stricter than that of our country. Li Beilei told reporters: "the import regulations for children's clothing and infant clothing are most stringent in Europe and America. Their children's wear standards are established earlier, and lessons learned from various injury cases, so their system is more perfect and detailed than ours."

Since 2008, China has promulgated 4 national standards for children's clothing safety. They are "Safety specifications for children's tops", "implementation standards for design and production of children's clothing for improving machinery safety", "safety requirements for children's ropes and belts" and "safety requirements and testing methods for children's clothing and children's ropes". Li Beilei said that the standard of children's wear in our country is in the initial stage, and it is not as mature as foreign countries. In reality, we will increase the strength of reference to foreign laws and regulations.

Inspection and quarantine department staff believe that compared with other clothing production bases such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Qingdao children's clothing production strength is not bad. But what impressed Li Beilei most is that the owners of private enterprises in the south are very active. "They are very familiar with the foreign laws and standards, and have been paying great attention to the changes of foreign laws and regulations. This is not what most Qingdao enterprises do." Li Beilei said. The information provided by the inspection and Quarantine Bureau also shows that the poor self-control ability of enterprises is one of the reasons for the frequent export problems of children's clothing in Qingdao. "At present, most of the manufacturing enterprises have no laboratory or lack of initial testing capability, mainly relying on the third party testing laboratory for safety project detection. Sometimes, in order to reduce costs, satisfy customers' requirements for testing what to detect, and customers do not explicitly require that they do not test.

Li Beilei also said that at present, there are still a small number of enterprises in their laboratories. Most enterprises can not afford to build up their own prosecution system, so it is difficult to guarantee the high quality of their products. "In design, many enterprises only cater to the needs of customers, do not pay attention to the technical regulations of importing countries, and the technical regulations of importing countries are the first basis for our inspection. Good companies will take the initiative to pay attention to the relevant laws and regulations. At present, many enterprises in Qingdao do not actually use it after passing the IS9000 quality certification. After actually using it, it will be found that it is very beneficial to the long-term development of enterprises.

Making independent brand is the way out for survival

Of course, children and infant clothing are frequently checked, and also reflect the increasingly serious living environment of garment export enterprises.

Kim told reporters that in recent years, the rising prices and wages of raw materials have made the garment export industry almost unprofitable. Many OEM companies in Qingdao are losing customers. Many foreign children's wear brands have shifted their Chinese businesses to Southeast Asian foundry factories such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. For example, GEOX, the largest footwear brand in Europe, has shifted its children's clothing part to Vietnam.

Mr Kim pointed out that compared with high-tech emerging industries such as electronics, traditional industries are under greater pressure. "As the garment industry is increasingly shifting to low labor prices, there will be many OEM enterprises that will not be able to survive, and only their own brands will have the chance to survive."