Major Chinese dairy producers promise to improve
19/9/2008 16:50
Major Chinese dairy companies today vowed to ensure the safety of their
products "at all costs" amid the ongoing tainted milk scandal.
"We firmly
support the decision taken by the [Communist] Party central committee and the
State Council. We will ensure food safety at all costs and fully implement the
measures to clean up the dairy industry," said Yang Wenjun, president of the
leading Mengniu group, which is headquartered in north China's Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region.
Yang, on behalf of the company's 30,000 employees,
apologized to the public as some batches of Mengniu's products were found to be
contaminated with melamine, a hazardous industrial chemical.
"The
contamination is a shame for us all that cannot be effaced," he added. Yang said
the company was recalling all the tainted products and would destroy
them.
Zhang Jianqiu, executive president of Yili, also announced full support
of the central government's decision to overhaul the dairy industry.
Yili
would review every stage in the processes of buying, processing and selling to
ensure no more tainted milk.
Bright Dairy & Food Co, headquartered in
Shanghai, would take all responsibility for its products and its compensation
for victims of tainted milk would be twice what the government required, a
company spokesman told Xinhua.
More than 6,200 infants have developed kidney
stones after drinking baby formula tainted with the chemical melamine, which
makes the protein content of the milk appearing higher than it is
actually.
Four babies have died.
Dairy giant Sanlu, based in the Hebei
provincial capital of Shijiazhuang in north China, was the first company exposed
in the scandal.
Xinhua
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