Further cooperation between China and Japan is required to investigate the so-called "poisoned dumpling incident", Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said here Wednesday.

Yang made the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual session of China's parliament.

"We hope relevant departments of the two sides, the police in particular, can have more communication and cooperation in a cool-headed, fair, objective and scientific manner to conduct coordinated investigation and find the truth as early as possible, " said Yang.

He believed it necessary to establish a long-term China-Japan food safety cooperation mechanism to carry out more timely and effective cooperation, adding both Chinese and Japanese expect such a mechanism can be set up at an early date.

He stressed China had conducted very serious and responsible investigation into the incident and had timely released initial investigation results since the government had been taking food safety very seriously and was very responsible for consumers at home and abroad.

In January, Japanese media reported that some people fell ill after consuming frozen meat dumplings produced by the Tianyang Food Plant based in north China's Hebei Province.

After thorough investigation, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said late February that the incident was an individual deliberate case, not a case of food safety resulting from pesticide residue.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2008)