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Two Chinese toymakers have been banned from exporting for their involvement in recent high-profile toy recalls in the United States, the country's top watchdog for quality control announced yesterday.

Hansheng Wooden Products Factory in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, is the producer of the 1.5 million wooden toys recalled by the US toymaker RC2 Corp in June, according to an investigation report from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).

RC2 Corp said the surface paint on certain toys contained too much lead.

Last week, another US toy maker, Fisher-Price, recalled 967,000 plastic pre-school toys made by a Chinese company because their paint "contained excessive amounts of lead". The AQSIQ confirmed in the report that the toys were from Lida Toy Company in Foshan, Guangdong.

The report said the problem was with Lida's paint supplier, which had used fake raw materials to produce the paint.

The AQSIQ said it had suspended the export licenses of the two companies and ordered them to address their problems.

Police are also investigating the fake materials used in the paint production and will punish those culpable according to the law, said the report.

The AQSIQ said it would make further efforts to ensure the safety of Chinese toys, but noted that the majority of made-in-China toys were up to the standard.

(China Daily 08/09/2007 page 2)

Questions:

1.  Which two Chinese companies were banned from exporting?

2.  Which two US companies distributed the faulty toys?

3.  What was wrong with the toys?

Answers:

1. Hansheng Wooden Products Factory and Lida Toy Company.

2. RC2 Corp and Fisher-Price.

3. The paint applied to the toys contained elevated levels of lead.

（英语点津 Linda 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Matt Doran is an award-winning American newspaper journalist and an undergraduate student at Albion College. He is currently a polisher for China Daily Website and is on summer break from Beijing Foreign Studies University, where he will resume his study of Chinese in the fall.