The world's largest toy maker, Mattel, has apologised for damaging China's reputation after recent massive recalls of its Chinese-made toys.
Mattel admitted today that in the majority of cases, flaws in its own designs were responsible for high levels of lead paint and loose magnets which prompted safety scares.
Mattel has come under scrutiny following the recall of about 21 million of the toys in a span of five weeks.
'Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls,' Thomas Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president of worldwide operations, told China's quality watchdog chief, Li Changjiang, in the Chinese capital.
'Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologises personally to you, the Chinese people and all of our customers who received the toys', he said.
Debrowski said he realised the damage that had been done to the reputation of Chinese goods, adding the company was committed to manufacturing in China and was also investing $30 million in a Barbie store in Shanghai.
'But it's important for everyone to understand that the vast majority of those products that we recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in Chinese manufacturers', he said.
The company added in a statement that too many toys had been recalled, although it said that was because it puts safety first.
Before the Mattel recalls, a spate of incidents involving unsafe Chinese products ranging from toys and seafood to toothpaste that entered both EU and US markets prompted calls on both sides of the Atlantic for a ban on products 'made in China'.
