(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-01 10:22

"The product safety campaign has been very successful so far, and we have made major breakthroughs in supervision over small food producers and children's toy makers," Wu said.

About 499 tons of highly poisonous pesticide such as methamidophos had been seized in a crackdown on the use of banned drugs in farm produce and feedstuffs in the past three months, said Li Changjiang, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), who was also at the conference.

Wholesale markets of farm produce in 676 large and medium-sized cities have been put under the monitoring of relevant authorities, Li said.

Li also revealed that 96.3 percent of the country's food producers had been licensed, while 98.7 percent of the small food workshops, considered a major threat to public food safety, had pledged product safety in written documents.

"We have also checked all the production bases of raw materials for food exports, and all the shipping packages of exported food have been imprinted with the quarantine and quality check marks," Li said.

Shao Mingli, head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), said the administration has taken back 157 Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificates and shut down nearly 300 drug producers and medical appliance manufacturers.

It has also established a network of drug supply to cover more than 90 percent of the rural areas, Shao said.

A total of 626 criminal cases involving the production or sale of substandard food, drugs and farm produce were filed during the campaign, with 774 suspects brought under control, according to the State Council.

"We should continue to aim for the set-up of a long-term mechanism to consolidate what we have achieved in the campaign to further improve the country's product quality," Li said.

At the end of last month, China's cabinet approved, in principle, a draft law on food safety to address the "weak points" in food production, processing, delivery, storage and sales.

After calling for strengthened supervision over drug production and sales as well as export products, Wu also called for increased efforts to work out product standards in accordance with international practices.

"We need to achieve the full success of the campaign," Wu emphasized.

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