Plants closed in tough stand on food
21/7/2007 10:35
China is reassessing its food safety supervision, while yesterday closing
a chemical plant linked to the deaths of 94 people in Panama and shutting two
companies with products linked to pet deaths in the United States.
The
country's product safety watchdog yesterday revoked licenses and shut factories
run by the Taixing Glycerin Factory, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology
Development Co Ltd and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co Ltd.
An
unspecified number of managers at Xuzhou Anying and Binzhou Futian have been
detained, and police are also investigating the two companies, said the General
Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
"Food
safety is not an issue of a certain nation, but a global issue," said Li
Changjiang, minister in charge of AQSIQ.
He said new measures will be
taken to enhance food safety supervision after investigations and study. The
existing system involves at least five central government departments. These
supervise farming, production and processing, and distribution and
selling.
Li said China was trying to tackle food safety in a
comprehensive way.
"To ensure the quality of food exports, the Chinese
government has set up a monitoring system that covers plantations, breeding
farms and production bases," said Li. "Only products that pass strict quarantine
inspection are allowed to be exported.
"But we do have a number of
problems in food safety as a lot of small manufacturers run in poor production
conditions," the minister said.
The Taixing Glycerin Factory has been
accused of selling industrial "TD glycerin," a mix of 15 percent diethylene
glycol and other substances.
It eventually ended up in Panamanian cough
syrup and other medicines that killed at least 94 people.
The government
also detailed punishments against Xuzhou Anying and Binzhou Futian, the two
companies linked to melamine-tainted wheat gluten blamed for the deaths of
dozens of dogs and cats in the US.
Xinhua/Shanghai Daily
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