Hong Kong has strictly checked vegetable pesticide residues in accordance with international standards, the food safety authorities said Monday, pledging zero tolerance to those violating related rules.

The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has run an efficient checking system on vegetable pesticide residues, though there's difficulty in tracing vegetable sources of the retailing points, Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene Leung Wing-lup said on Monday.

Leung's remarks came after environmental groups' report that vegetables sold at Hong Kong's major supermarket chains have a harmful amount of pesticide residues.

In response, the HKSAR government has required the major supermarket chains to set up a better vegetable source tracing system, said Leung.

With a daily import of 1,700 tones of vegetables, the HKSAR Food and Environmental Department conducted 20,000 sample checks in last year, with one fourth of the samples taken from markets and supermarkets.

The authorities in Hong Kong have established contacts with their counterpart in the mainland, which can easily track down exporters selling vegetables with high pesticide residues.

Leung defended the system saying that the present sampling ratio is appropriate taking into account risk assessment and resources deployment.

Besides, the city's Vegetable Marketing Organization also conducted its own tests on vegetables from local farms, with 9,000 samples tested in the past six months.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2006)