The top quality watchdog yesterday began a 10-day crackdown on
illegal alcohol production in four provinces, as a curtain raiser
to a series of food safety and product quality inspections.
Inspectors in East China's Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi
provinces kicked off the campaign with raids on 144 alcohol
production facilities in four cities near the provincial border
where alcohol producers are concentrated.
Twenty-three of them were found to be operating without
production licenses, while 83 were classed as small-scale plants
with less than 10 employees.
Inspectors seized 6.58 tons of possibly unsafe alcohol and 4.6
tons of raw materials, the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.
Yan Fengmin, deputy director of the administration's law
enforcement and supervision department, who is heading a working
group in Zhejiang, told China Daily that producers who
failed to meet the national standards would be either closed down
or ordered to make improvements.
He said the administration paid close attention to alcohol
quality because it was a popular drink in the country.
"More importantly, its quality directly affects the safety of
the public," he said.
According to a circular from the administration, the crackdown
mainly targets unlicensed producers and the use of industrial
alcohol and illegal additives in liquor. The crackdown also aims to
set up an inter-provincial coordination mechanism on quality
control.
The crackdown is the first of many safety inspections to be
launched after the State Council started a "special battle" against
poor product quality late last month.
(China Daily September 6, 2007)
