New toy regulations took effect on April 15 2010. They permit the sale of toys with quality assurance certificates, but the market is still flooded with uncertified products.

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A Tuoi Tre reporter asked to see toys with quality assurance stamps at a dozen toy shops along the Hang Ma-Cha Ca-Luong Van Can intersections, Hanoi’s well-known “centre” for toys. All the salesmen shook their heads and expressed surprise.

The owner of a big toy wholesale shop on Hang Ma street asked: “Where are the stamps? I buy a truckload of toys, but I don’t care about stamps.”

Chinese toys account for over 90 percent of those showcased in this area. Products range in price from 1000 dong to hundreds of thousand dong and all have labels in Chinese. Many products have warnings about ages, but they are written in Chinese or English. None have instructions in Vietnamese.

Many toys are wrapped in plastic, with small warnings for parents to immediately throw away the wrapping to avoid harm to kids, but this too is printed only in foreign languages.

In HCM City toy centres like Tan Dinh market, Phan Dinh Phung road and even in supermarkets and bookstores, toys are also missing these stamps. Worse, up to 60-70 percent of toys don’t have origin labels.

Nguyen Truong Son, Vice-Chief of Hanoi’s market control team No.2, noted that quality inspectors haven’t seen toy quality assurance stamps yet, so they can’t do their job right now.

Tran Tuyet Nhung, a senior official from the General Department for Standardization and Quality Measurement, explained that, according to the new regulations, toys for kids under 16 years old must have quality certificates and stamps.

As of April 5, foreign toys can only enter Vietnam if they are tested and have certificates. Locally-made toy producers must register for standardization and quality measurement and have quality assurance stamps before selling them in the market.

Nhung noted that both imported and domestic toys are being tested and none of them have stamps.

Hoang Lam, the deputy director of the Centre for Standardisation and Quality Measurement No. 3, revealed that toys will be evaluated with various norms to ensure safety for kids. New toy standards have expanded, so the testing will take time.

Others added that, in addition to enforcing the new rules, controls on smuggled toys from China must be tightened.

PV