China's State Council publicized a special regulation on the
supervision of food safety on Friday amid criticism from home and
abroad about the quality of food products made in China.
The regulation issued by the State Council is aimed at
intensifying the control over producers and distributors dealing
with food products. The main points are:
-- Inspection and quarantine authorities, as well as commercial
and drug supervisors, should establish positive and negative
records for Chinese food exporters and submit the records to the
media regularly.
-- Local governments at county level and above are mainly
responsible for the supervision of food product safety.
-- Exporters of food products who provide fake quality
certificates or evade quality and quarantine inspections will be
fined three times the product's value.
China has faced a barrage of international criticism over the
state of its food industry in the first six months of the year
following a series of scandals.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced at the end
of March that pet food imported from China had caused the deaths of
cats and dogs. Later, in May, Chinese toothpaste was found to
contain diethylene glycol in Central America and the United
States.
Japan, Singapore, Australia and other countries sent back
millions of toothpaste tubes and Canada halted imports from
China.
The FDA also refused seafood products from China in June, saying
that it would not resume imports until Chinese exporters provided
necessary safety certificates.
The regulation has also set out rules on the supervision of
imported food products:
-- China's imported food products should meet both the national
compulsory standards and criteria in the contracts signed by
Chinese importers and foreign exporters.
-- Chinese importers should make detailed records for domestic
distributions of imported food products and the records should be
kept for at least two years.
-- Inspection and quarantine authorities should establish a
blacklist for foreign exporters and seriously punish domestic
importers who introduced unqualified food products.
(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2007)