The Chinese government is determined to step up fight to prevent
substandard foodstuffs from going overseas, said a white paper
issued here on Friday.
Over the years, China has been promoting the quality and safety
level of exported food and satisfy numerous Chinese and foreign
customers with high-quality, delicious and inexpensive foodstuffs,
said the white paper released by the Information Office of China's
State Council.
"The qualification rate of exported Chinese food products has
been over 99 percent for many years," said the 29-page white paper
on the country's food safety.
This is due to a quality control system that covers all major
food exports of the country, especially high-risk foodstuffs such
as meat, aquatic products and vegetables, it said.
"Yet, there are still a tiny number of enterprises that
disregard the law, regulations and standards of China and importing
countries and, by deception or fraud, avoid supervision by the
inspection and quarantine authorities, or export food by improper
channels," it said.
"Consequently, some adulterated, counterfeit or shoddy
foodstuffs have found their way from China into foreign
markets."
As an important way to guarantee the country's food exports, the
system has a set of standards applying to both food companies and
farming bases, covering the whole process of food production and
circulation.
Chinese quarantine authorities have adopted a registration
system for farming bases that supply raw materials for food
exports. So far, 6,031 animal farms and 380,000 hectares of
farmland have been registered with the authorities, with their name
list publicized on the official website.
Manufacturers of food exports also have to register with
hygienic authorities and receive supervision of quarantine
authorities on a regular basis. The quarantine authorities also
dispatch resident inspectors to large-scale manufacturers of
high-risk products such as meat. Currently, 12,714 food
manufacturers have been registered with hygienic authorities.
The government has also developed a credit system for food
exporting enterprises. Companies with serious quality problems or
cheating on quality or safety will be named and shamed on the
Internet. So far, 55 companies have been put on the blacklist.
China exported 24 million tons of foodstuffs in 2006, worth 26.7
billion U.S. dollars. The largest buyers were Japan, the United
States, Korea, Russia, Germany and Malaysia.
(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2007)