A team of senior Chinese police officers is to go to Japan to
assist the investigation into the alleged poisoning of Chinese-made
dumplings, China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said on
Thursday.
The team, led by the Yu Xinmin, vice director of the MPS
criminal investigation bureau, would exchange information and views
with Japanese police, said a notice on the MPS website.
Yu would be accompanied by senior criminal investigators Wu
Guoqing and Cui Daozhi and toxicologist Wang Guiqiang.
The notice gave no further details.
Japanese media reported on January 30 that at least 10 people in
the Hyogo and Chiba prefectures reported stomachaches, vomiting or
diarrhoea after eating the imported dumplings.
Earlier this month, Japanese and Chinese investigators inspected
the manufacturer, Tianying Food Plant, in Hebei Province, but found
nothing irregular. They also found no problems related to the
purchase of raw materials or the production process.
Cheng Fang, the director of Hebei Province's quality inspection
agency said the two batches of dumplings involved in the case were
unlikely to have been contaminated during the transportation
process in China.
Di Menglu, head of Tianyang, quoted a statement from Japan's
Ministry of Education dated February 6, which said that schools
serving dumplings from the same batches had reported no poisoning
cases.
Tianyang Food Plant has been exporting to Japan for 10 years,
and sent 3,970 tonnes of dumplings to Japan last year.
Earlier tests showed the rest of the dumplings from the same
batches sold in Japan, totaling more than 2,000 packages, were
safe. So were all the other products made by the Chinese
company.
?
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2008)
