Minister of State Lee Yi Shyan's reply to Parliament Questions on the Safety of Toys

No. 540 in Notice paper No. 182 of 2010

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mdm Cynthia Phua (MP for Aljunied GRC)

Question
To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) what is the current process to test the toxicity of toys by importers; (b) whether the Ministry will look into a nation-wide review of all toys in the market before the year-end season; (c) what are the regulatory safeguards to protect children against toxic chemicals in toys; and (d) whether the Ministry has plans to tighten regulations on the importation of toys before they are put on the market.

Answer
The Consumer Protection (Trade Descriptions and Safety Requirements) Act provides the broad legal framework to protect consumers from unsafe consumer products. Regulations issued under the Act empower SPRING Singapore to regulate 45 categories of household electrical, electronic, and gas products. Products capable of serious, immediate and adverse effects on consumers are gazette as Controlled Goods and suppliers have to obtain safety certification before they can legally be sold in Singapore. The Act carries a maximum fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment from term of up to 2 years, or both. Other government agencies are also vested with legal authority to regulate the safety of consumer products in specific sectors such as food and medicine.

The Act also makes it a criminal offence to apply false trade descriptions on all goods. The aim is to protect consumers from being induced by errant traders to buy goods through the application of false or misleading trade descriptions. In the context of product safety, the Act could be enforced against suppliers who falsely describe their products as having met certain safety standards when they do not.

While toys are not screened upfront, their product safety is monitored through various mechanisms such as sharing of information with overseas safety agencies and provision of information by various consumer groups. SPRING Singapore works with suppliers to remove these consumer products from the market once they are found to be unsafe. Given the supply chain involved in bringing a toy to the point of sale, cooperation by all parties is key in ensuring product safety. This was demonstrated recently when the Consumer Association of Singapore (Case) brought the discovery of unsafe toys to the public's attention through its tests on toys. Since then, SPRING and Case have been working with retailers and importers to recall and remove the unsafe toys from the market. SPRING is also conducting checks to ensure that these toys are not carried by other retailers not covered by Case, and will step up its efforts to detect and remove unsafe toys during the year-end festive periods.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry and SPRING have been reviewing the existing framework to regulate general consumer products before the recent reports on unsafe toys. Based on study of comparable economies and consultation with stakeholders including Case and departmental stores, we are looking at enhancing SPRING’s power to recall or ban products that do not meet standards, such as maximum level of lead allowed, when they are uncovered through mandatory notification of safety failures by suppliers, overseas incidents, or sample testing by SPRING. We expect to complete the review by the end of the year, before proceeding to amend the relevant legislation.

The emphasis on ex-post actions is also the approach taken by a number of developed economies such as South Korea, Australia, and Japan. It provides a balanced approach that does not impose unnecessary cost on businesses.

The safety of toys is an important issue we must address. Along with the thousands of other consumer goods that are sold and used on a daily basis, we will need an efficient regime to ensure the safety of goods sold in the market. However, we should not over-react. Inspecting all toys upfront without consideration of the practicalities not only slows down the entire process and increases costs for the consumers, it has also not been proven to be effective anywhere in the world. For toy safety, we will continue to enhance product safety standards and surveillance based on our ex-post regime. This will require all parties, including importers, distributors, and consumers, to play their part.