Beijing will ban all unlicensed catering outlets and
celebrity-starred medical ads by the end of this year, according to
the capital's quality and food safety authorities.
The city would focus its quality checkup on ten kinds of
products, including food, drugs, home appliances and toys, said the
municipal government when kicking off a four-month campaign aimed
at improving product quality and food safety on Saturday.
Vegetables, fruits, meat, edible oil, aquatic products,
children's food and health food are the main targets in food
checkups, according to a detailed plan for the campaign.
The plan says that by the end of the year the city will close
all unlicensed restaurants, all its food producers must be
qualified, and no harmful material can be used in food
processing.
Medical advertisements in which public figures or experts
testify the alleged effectiveness of products will also be
banned.
"Currently, the main problem in the city's product quality and
food safety lies in small food processing factories and workshops
and in the urban-rural fringe areas," said Lu Hao, vice mayor of
Beijing.
The checkups will be carried out by the city's industry and
commerce, quality supervision and health departments.
The Chinese government has been striving to improve product
quality after a string of safety scares with China-made products at
home and abroad.
The scares included tainted wheat gluten for pet food and
children's toys found to contain excessive lead levels.
In the latest move, China's quality watchdog on Friday
introduced the nation's landmark recall systems for unsafe food
products and toys. The recall regulations went into effect on the
same day.
(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2007)