"We have set up a blacklist system for companies in the exporting sector and punished some companies that have violated laws and regulations," Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said in remarks posted on the ministry's website. "Already 429 companies have been punished."

Gao said the recent examples of companies that had been targeted included two firms that illegally added a deadly chemical to food products blamed for killing thousands of US pets.

The two companies, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd., had their export foreign trade licences revoked, Gao said.

It appeared that the blacklist had been in existence for some time, but China's decision to publicise it now could be significant.

China is struggling to limit the negative fall-out of a series of recent scandals involving low-quality, shoddy and dangerous export products made in China.

US-based Fisher-Price said Wednesday it was recalling 967,000 toys including popular Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer-branded toys over fears their paint could contain excessive levels of lead.

Other overseas health and safety scares to have tarnished the "Made in China" brand recently have included seafood, toothpaste and car tyres.

BOOMING ECONOMY POLLUTING SEA

Another report adds: China's booming economy is wreaking havoc on the nation's coastal waters, with sewers often spilling right into parts of the sea reserved for tourism or aqua-farming, state media said Saturday.

This is the conclusion of a new survey of China's coastal environment over the first six months of the year, published by the State Oceanic Administration, the China Daily reported.

According to the survey, 77 percent of 500 pollution outlets monitored by the administration discharge more pollutants than permitted, an 18 percent increase from the first half of 2006.

Forty-two percent of the outlets monitored went into sea fishery farms, often carrying pollutants such as phosphate, ammonia and nitrogen, according to the paper.

However, the paper took pains to emphasise that "it did not pose a threat to seafood security."

A series of high-profile cases involving shoddy or dangerous Chinese exports has raised global concerns about the safety of products made in the country.

The State Oceanic Admini-stration said the report could actually underplay the extent of the problems, although it admitted it did not know for sure.

"The surveillance is incomplete, in that it is not real-time, so the de facto seawater quality might be even worse than what the report says," said Li Xiaoming, director of the administration's environmental protection unit.