EU, China Ink Consumer Protection Agreement

Brussels, Belgium (AHN) - The European Commission and China signed on Monday an agreement to improve controls to prevent the entry of potentially dangerous Chinese product and food to EU.

Aside from the recent melamine scare in Chinese milk, questions had previously been raised about lead content of toys manufactured in China.

The deal mandates China to inform the EU its moves to track dangerous goods. A joint team of EU and Chinese officials may conduct coordinated inspections on producers to ensure safety benchmarks are being met.

In turn Chinese officials will be granted access to the EU's Rapid Alert System for Feed and Food. With the deal, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is studying the possibility of expanding the EU-China agreement into a three-way cooperation to include the U.S. and common safety standards for toys.

Even prior to the melamine scare, China had already introduced several innovations to improve the safety and control of its exports, including the bar coding of food items for export.