Chinese food products are getting safer, the top quality
watchdog said yesterday.
It said tests on 3,384 different kinds of foodstuff showed about
86 percent were up to standard.
The products, from 2,777 processing companies, involved 35
categories, including milk, beer, jelly, fruit juice, milk powder,
canned goods, and dried food and nuts.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection
and Quarantine, to reassure consumers following a number of safety
scandals, said records of the past 22 years showed the safety of
food products had been steadily increasing since 1998.
"The proportion of food products tested and qualified in the
first half was the highest in recent years," Ji Zhengkun, director
of the administration's quality inspection department, said. He did
not give figures for previous years.
Beer, fruit juice and dried food and nuts saw the biggest
improvement in quality, he said. Tests from January to last month
showed that 89.3 percent of beer products met required standards,
5.2 percent higher than last year, and 80 percent of fruit juices,
up 4.1 percent.
Figures showed 92 percent of dried food and nuts were also up to
required standards. Inspectors did not find any excessive use of
food additives, a problem once common in dried food.
For those that did not qualify, Ji said irregular labeling was
mainly to blame. At least 97.5 percent of juices tested were up to
standard, if labeling was not taken into consideration.
Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Agriculture said farm products
were safer than before, citing tests on fruit, vegetables, meat and
fish in major cities.
Ji attributed the quality improvement to stricter supervision
and the implementation of a market access mechanism.
But he admitted there were still problems. Excessive use of food
additives and pathogenic bacteria such as the coli groups were
found in some samples.
Reports of substandard food often appear in the media and the
issue burst into the international spotlight when allegedly tainted
additives, exported from China, contaminated pet food in North
America.
However, Ji said one company's problem did not make it a
national problem. "If some food is below standard, you can't say
all the country's food is unsafe," he said. "We must have
confidence in our foodstuff."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang yesterday accused the media
of playing up food safety issues.
"China has been very responsible in this regard to ensure the
good quality and safety of its exports," he said, warning that the
widespread media coverage would "lead to panic among
consumers".
Qin said more than 99 percent of food exports to the US in the
last three years had met quality standards, or even higher than the
equivalent figure for US food exports to China.
(China Daily July 4, 2007)