Officials to check if standards are good enough at PLA factories making uniforms for British troops
Ministry of Defence officials from London have flown to central China to inspect factories making British army combat gear amid complaints that workers are turning out sub-standard uniforms.
The inspection, shortly before Christmas, followed a controversy over the $750 million contract allowing British army uniforms to be made abroad for the first time.
One sub-contract has been given to military factories run by the People's Liberation Army in Chongqing to prepare millions of dollars worth of camouflage combat gear.
Claims have been made by rival contractors and raised in the British parliament that the outfits being prepared at the two sites of PLA factory number 3533 in Chongqing are not up to standard and could potentially put soldiers serving in Iraq at risk.
The British government has also been stung by complaints that jobs at British companies that produced army uniforms have been lost to low-paid mainland workers.