The United States, the European Union and Canada plan to establish a common set of safety rules on some infant products, moving a step forward to a harmonised global regime, according to a senior US government official.
Instead of aligning existing safety requirements in different jurisdictions into one regime, the three parties intend to draft a one-for-all set of rules as a trial, said Inez Tenenbaum, chairwoman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency behind product recalls.
The US proposed to begin the initiative by writing rules for three areas of products - baby slings, high-chairs and window covering.
'It is too complicated to harmonise existing rules into one,' said Tenenbaum yesterday on the sidelines of the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair. 'It will be a long time before a full set of harmonised standards are put in place.'
A common safety regime on consumer products will mean significant savings of time, regulatory compliance and money for manufacturers and suppliers, who must presently satisfy different sets of safety standards in different countries.
The US made compliance of product safety rules compulsory in 2008. But the toy industry on the mainland and in Hong Kong has been hard hit by a string of recalls in the US on products said to have a defective design and toxic components.