Workers make protective masks at the workshop of a company in Jinxian county, East China's Jiangxi Province, Feb. 1, 2020. File Photo: Xinhua

Beijing's market supervision and administration department found 16 batches of defective face masks on Wednesday, including foreign brands made by Honeywell, Airwalker and Dr. Hoffmann. 

Beijing authorities said "unqualified labels" were found on a batch of Honeywell Anti-PM2.5 face masks called "H930" which were made in Shanghai. 

The company is a subsidiary of Honeywell Safety Products Europe and was founded in Shanghai in 2005. The US industrial conglomerate Honeywell has more than 20 factories in China with about 11,000 employees, according to China Economic Net. 

Airwalker's masks for women which contains filtering material imported from the US was also found to have label problems. Face masks sold under the name Dr. Hoffmann had the same issue. 

PITTA masks manufactured by Japan's ARAX had problems with filtration efficiency, leakage and label issues. 

The filtration efficiency is classified into two categories: one is able to filter bacteria and the other is to filter particulate matter. The second type must have a tight design. 

Other problematic masks produced in China were found to have low filtration efficiency protection. 

The Beijing official department vowed to continue to strengthen the supervision of products by spot checks and provide a better consumer environment in the capital city.