With all the high-profile product recalls and quality scares associated with Chinese products this year, events in the news can give some sense of the response elicited from Chinese government and business circles. Xinhua today reports customs authorities in Guangdong Province, a major base for toy-making industries in China, saying demand for exported toys has rebounded from the recall dramas of earlier this year. Partly spurred by the start of the Christmas retail season, Guangdong toy exports in October still registered no less than a 27.6% year-on-year increase. Yet in reaction to the outcry over toy safety the province launched a month-long safety inspection in September, and the provincial Quarantine and Inspection Bureau subsequently withdrew production licenses from 423 toy makers.  

In terms of food safety, a Chinese government spokesman has recently outlined the measures recently taken in legislation, administration and media supervision. In the aftermath of international food quality scandals Chinese officials have called for international consultation on food security, and today saw news of the issuing of a joint declaration in Beijing by 600 World Health Organization (WHO) and international delegates from 45 countries to boost information exchange on food contamination and disease outbreaks. 

It seems likely in fact Chinese manufacturing is taking the quality concerns of 2007 in its stride. The editor of Cargonews Asia this week expressed his amazement at signs that manufacturers in China have actually increased their profitability despite a number of challenges such as inflationary pressures and increased costs of raw materials:

The rising costs forced mainland manufacturers to seek out the inefficiencies in their systems that were previously of little consequence... Labour costs have always been low enough that some factories employed hundreds of thousands of workers with no regard for the payroll. Those days are over. Better transport and storage of raw materials, improved technical efficiency in the production process, better warehousing and road access have all enabled factories to cut down on waste and ramp up productivity.