Speech by Gao Hongbin, Vice Minister of Agriculture

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good Morning.

I'm very pleased to meet you on this occasion and wish to thank you for your attention and support to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) over the years. Taking this opportunity, I'll brief you about the progress and the initial achievements we have made in our rectification program in respect of the quality and safety of agricultural products. In this way, I hope to facilitate our communication on issues of mutual concern.

The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the quality and safety of agricultural products, which is a key component of product quality and food safety. In accordance with the instruction of the State Council Leading Group of Product Quality and Food Safety, MOA took the lead in setting up a Rectification Group for Agricultural Products which consists of representatives from 8 ministries and commissions. Meanwhile, MOA established a Leading Group headed by the Minister of Agriculture Sun Zhengcai for the specialized rectification program in respect of the quality and safety of agricultural products, which is responsible for the coordination and unified planning of the rectification program.

After the State Council convened a national teleconference on the specialized rectification program for product quality and food safety on 23 August 2007, MOA organized several executive meetings to learn and act in the spirit of the important speeches made by Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Premier Wu Yi. We reached a common understanding and we made our planning for the rectification program. According to the arrangement of the State Council Leading Group of Product Quality and Food Safety and in the light of the specific situation of the quality and safety of agricultural products, the Rectification Group for Agricultural Products spared no time to work out the Work Plan of the Rectification Group for Agricultural Products and the Implementation Scheme for the Specialized Rectification Program in Respect of the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products. Four objectives, three priorities and six actions have been identified and 12 100 percent indicators and 20 initial goals have been put forward in these documents.

Four objectives . These include the agricultural product wholesale markets in large and medium cities of China will be covered by quality and safety surveillance by 100 percent; the application of forbidden pesticides, animal drugs, and feed additives will be solved basically; the rate of excess residue and residue detection rate in vegetable, animal and poultry, aquatic products will further decrease; illegal production, sale and application of five types of highly toxic pesticides including methamidophos, parathion, parathion-methyl, monocrotophos, phosphamidon will be eliminated.

Three priorities . Priorities will be attached to agricultural input inspection, agrochemicals application inspection in agricultural production, inspection of certified products such as safe agricultural product, green food, organic agricultural product, etc.

Six rectifications . These refer to the rectification of highly toxic pesticides and crop products, the rectification of livestock product quality and safety, the rectification of animal drugs and pig farming, the rectification of aquatic product quality and safety, the rectification of certified product quality and safety and the rectification and surveillance of agricultural product wholesale market.

Twelve 100 percent . These includes, confiscated highly toxic pesticides will be destroyed by 100 percent; the random inspection rate of pesticide residue in safe agricultural product and standardized production base will reach 100 percent; the examination rate of certified feed additive production enterprises will reach 100 percent; the GMP accreditation rate of animal drug production enterprises will reach 100 percent; the inspection and examination rate of enterprises producing vaccines for major animal diseases will reach 100 percent; healthy aquaculture farms, registered raw materials production bases for export, safe aquatic product producing enterprises will establish documentation of drug application in production and sale record by 100 percent, and the inspection rate will reach 100 percent; the certification-holding rate of vaccine production enterprises will reach 100 percent; vaccine producing enterprises will establish record of raw materials used in production and sale record by 100 percent; the inspection rate of breeding farms of national level and provincial level will reach 100 percent, the positive samples will be traced back and conclusion will be made by 100 percent; the agricultural product wholesale markets in large and medium cities will be covered by quality and safety surveillance by 100 percent.

In order to promote the specialized rectification in respect of agricultural product, implementing the territorial responsibility mechanism, Mr. Sun Zhengcai, Minister of Agriculture lead a team to different places including Shanghai to guide and supervise the specialized rectification work; the Ministry of Agriculture has organized 50 inspections teams with NDRC and other agencies to guide and supervise the specialized inspection work in counties, towns, production base, and market. Seeing from the inspection, the local governments at various levels have all established agricultural product specialized rectification leading groups and working teams, formulated detailed working plan, and the agricultural product rectification work is gradually promoted.

The agricultural departments at all levels took unified actions, made careful plans and precise arrangements, and adopted multiple measures. As a result, the specialized rectification program for agricultural products has achieved initial success. According to the statistics, since the launch of the program, 170,000 person times of law-enforcing staff from the agricultural departments have participated in the program and 8,111 cases have been investigated and taken care of, among which 4,328 have been filed, and 8 have been transferred to judicial organs. During the program, 10 people were arrested, 95 enterprises without appropriate licenses were shut down and 6 enterprises' business licenses have been revoked. The major activities of the program include the following aspects:

First , rectification of highly toxic pesticide. Emphasis has been laid on the registration of highly toxic pesticide, rectification of products names, labels and tags as well as market regulation. The registration of 11 highly toxic pesticide products from 7 enterprises have been cancelled, and 5 illegal manufacturing spots have been crashed.

Second , rectification of feed and livestock products. Efforts have been taken to tighten the supervision against the use of illegal drugs in feed and animal farming practices. Samples from 27000 batches of feed and swine urine were tested.

Third , rectification of animal drug and swine production. Priorities have been placed on the inspection of animal drugs during its production, trade and application. Samples have been taken and tested from a total of 3725 batches of animal drugs, and 11 cases of producing and selling nonconforming products have been investigated and taken care of. The agricultural departments have cooperated with the police in capturing more than 3000 kilos of pork from sick or dead pigs, and arresting 5 criminal suspects.

Fourth , the rectification of aquatic products. Major actions have been taken on investigation of prohibited drugs during the farming of aquatic products. Comprehensive law-enforcing investigation of aquatic production has been carried out in 11 major producing provinces.

Fifth , the rectification of product certification. Having organized the self examination by 24693 enterprises certified enterprises, the government has conducted random checks on 2582 production bases, and 949 enterprises, revoked 9 certificates of origin, rectified the nonstandard use of trademark of 23 products, and investigated and treated the 1 product with counterfeit trademark.

Six , in the aspect of monitoring and random sampling as well as control of wholesale markets, we have organized random sampling and testing for 36 capital cities, municipalities directly under the control of the Central Government, production bases of special listed cities, standardized demonstration zones, animal raising farms on large scale, slaughtering houses, supermarkets and agro-produce wholesale markets. Currently, we have finished almost 5000 sample testing. At present, among 676 agro-produce wholesale markets in capital cities and prefecture level cities, 479 wholesale markets have been listed in the supervision by the competent agricultural departments, which has accounted for 71 percent, a fifteen percentage points higher than that before the “specialized rectification program” was carried out.

For the immediate future, MOA, in line with the unified program for product quality and food safety by the State Council and in coordination with other relevant departments, will further intensify our efforts by detailing and implementing specific measures and continue the implementation of the specialized rectification program in order to ensure the realization of various targets we have set and accomplish the mission of rectifying agro-produce's quality and safety entrusted by the Party Central Committee and the State Council and live up to the expectation of the vast majority of our people.

Next, my colleagues and I will take your questions regarding the specialized rectification program for agricultural products.