before accepting them, check business licenses, require invoices for purchases, keep accounts of transactions and honor their undertakings for food quality, as well as promotes market managers' food quality responsibility system; implements market inspection system in an all-around way; improves the food quality monitoring system, and strictly implements the system that substandard food must be withdrawn from the market and be destroyed and made known to the public; strengthens administration over butchering of livestock and fowls, breaks down regional barriers and encourages the nationwide circulation of high-quality foodstuffs with good credit standing and prestigious brand names; improves food processing, circulation and service systems in communities; strengthens the management of the use of genuine food safety labels and standard packaging, and concentrates efforts to crack down on printing of fake packaging, labels and trademarks.

7. Intensifying Supervision for Food Safety in Catering Industry

Hygiene in the catering industry is vital for food safety. In this regard, the Chinese Government has primarily done the following: One, it has intensified supervision on hygiene in the catering industry, promulgated and put into effect the Hygienic Standards for the Catering Industry and Group Food Service Providers, adopted a quantified and classified supervisory system for food hygiene management, and strengthened supervision on each link of the catering industry. Two, it has urged the catering industry and canteens to implement the quantified and classified supervisory system for food hygiene management in an all-around way, improved and strengthened monitoring of food contamination and building of a monitoring system on diseases caused by contaminated food. Three, it has intensified crackdown on activities in violation of food safety law, investigated and dealt with serious cases and timely made them known to the public. In 2006, the health departments inspected 2.04 million catering entities of various types and school canteens, dealt with 45,000 cases of illegal food processing and sale and closed down 25,000 food processors and sellers that had been operating without hygiene permits. Four, it has strengthened efforts on hygienic work in schools, directed and carried out special inspections on food and drinking water sanitation, and prevention and treatment of contagious diseases in schools all over the country, as well as prevention of food poisoning and the spread of communicable intestinal diseases. Five, it has conducted food-related jeopardy assessment and issued early warnings for food safety problems on a scientific basis and provided food assessment information.

8. Carrying out Rectification in Respect of Food Quality and Safety in an All-around Way

In order to crack down on the spread of counterfeit and shoddy foodstuffs in certain regions, special comprehensive rectification campaigns were launched in these regions for food quality and safety. The Chinese Government has conducted a special project involving hundreds of regions, thousands of townships and tens of thousands of food producers and processors. Targeting key regions, food processing venues and households and their products, the project has resolved the regional problem of producing and selling fake and inferior goods by establishing a food safety monitoring network, stepping up efforts in building up the technological forces such as standardization and monitoring technology, improving technical services for enterprises, promoting the setting up of food industry associations, and intensifying law enforcement and making more stringent efforts to crack down on the production and sale of counterfeit and faulty food. Meanwhile, the departments of industry and commerce as well as quality supervision and inspection keep intensifying law enforcement and, with focus on food quality and safety, direct and conduct special law enforcement actions against activities in producing and processing counterfeit food-related items at the source, strictly crack down on illegal activities such as production of food with non-food materials and misuse of additives in food, as well as food producers with neither a business license nor food-processing permit. In 2006, the quality supervision and inspection departments handled 49,000 illegal operations in this field, confiscating counterfeit and shoddy foodstuffs worth 450 million yuan. In the same year, the departments of industry and commerce sent 5.6 million person/times for law enforcement and inspected 16,000 key food markets and 10.4 million food operating business/times, closed down 151,800 unlicensed businesses, revoked 4,629 business licenses, investigated and dealt with 68,000 cases of production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy food, of which 48 cases were referred to the relevant judicial organs, and ordered 15,500 tons of substandard foodstuffs off the market.

9. Beefing Up the Construction of a Risk-Warning and Emergency-Response System

The Chinese Government has established a nationwide quick risk warning and responding system in respect of food safety, actively conducted risk monitoring and control in food production, processing, circulation and consumption, and preliminarily realized the early discovery, early warning, early control and early treatment of food-safety problems through efficient collection and analysis of information on food safety. It has also established a rapid and efficient response mechanism covering the collection and analysis of risk-related information, issuing warnings and rapid responses so that it is possible to provide prompt reports, take swift action, make accurate judgment and work out appropriate countermeasures.

10. Establishing and Improving a Food Recall System

This system comprises two aspects: active recall and instructed recall. The system stipulates that it is the responsibility of food producing and processing enterprises to recall their products if necessary, and requires that food producers should instantly put a halt to the production and selling of their products if they suspect any safety risk in their food products, and take the initiative to recall such food products. Producers who purposely conceal food hazards or do not perform their recall obligations, or whose faulty production has extended such hazards or made them recur, will be instructed to recall their products. In recent years, in conducting food sample surveys and law enforcement, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has become more stringent in demanding food recall when major food-safety hazards, such as pathogenic bacteria, chemical pollutant or non-food materials, are found in food products. Toward those food producing enterprises causing serious consequences, the Administration has revoked their licenses, thus reducing hazards that might be caused by unsafe food and safeguarding the health and safety of consumers.

11. Improving the Food Safety Credit System

The Chinese Government pays great attention to the construction of the credit system for food safety, and has set up the preliminary credit records for food-producing enterprises, as well as a system to publicize the honor rolls and blacklists of food producers and processors. Meanwhile, the functions of chambers of commerce and trade associations have been brought into full play to promote self-discipline in the food industry. By giving backing to excellent and competent enterprises, the government supports and helps good and strong enterprises by legislative, administrative and economic means to create an honest environment for food safety, and to enhance people's awareness of honesty in this regard. It has made great efforts in gradual improvement of this mechanism for food safety, and given full scope to its role in regulating, guiding and supervising food safety. It has built up files of credit records of food safety and promoted classified credit monitoring in the food industry. Emphasis is laid on the establishment of a registration and information system and a classified database of credit records of food producers and sellers, which collects information on food producers' and sellers' market access, food-safety control, and consumers' complaints and reports, to ensure an effective control based on adequate information. In recent years, the latest network technology has been used for this purpose, so that consumers may timely, easily, quickly and effectively distinguish counterfeits from genuine ones, which greatly helps safeguard consumers' interests, discourages the production and sale of fake foodstuffs and promotes honesty among enterprises in this industry.

Over the years, the continuous growth of the food industry in terms of variety and quantity as well as the improvement of quality have helped satisfy the people's ever-increasing consumption demands, raised their living standard and promoted national economic development. However, the Chinese Government is well aware that there are still problems with food safety, owing to the country's limited socio-economic development. In the days to come, penalties will be focused on those who produce shoddy products or products containing inferior materials or impurities, palm off counterfeits as genuine ones, process foodstuffs with non-food or moldy materials, produce foodstuffs in disregard of required standards and misuse additives in foodstuffs, so as to continuously guarantee food quality and safety.

III. Supervision of Imported and Exported Food

1. Supervision of Imported Food

Exploration and practice over the years have enabled China to set up a complete framework of food quality and safety supervisory system and guarantee measures to ensure the safety of imported food.

-Scientific risk management system. According to the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and common international practice, the Chinese Government adopts an inspection and quarantine entry system based on risk management for high-risk imported food, such as meat and vegetables, which includes: making a risk analysis on the high-risk food that the exporting country applies to export to China; signing an inspection and quarantine agreement with the exporting country on food involving acceptable risks; carrying out hygiene registration for foreign food enterprises; and quarantining, examining and approving the imported food of animal and plant origin. If epidemic animal or plant diseases or severe food safety problems occur in the exporting country, China shall take timely risk management measures, including suspending food imports from that country.

-Strict inspection and quarantine system. When imported food arrives at the port of entry, the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities carry out inspection and quarantine in accordance with law, and approve the foodstuffs to be imported only if they meet the required standards; and the customs house clears the imported food upon the strength of the Customs Clearance List of Inward/Outward Goods as issued by the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities. Only then can the food be sold in the Chinese market. If safety or hygienic problems are found in the food when inspected and quarantined, corresponding measures are immediately taken. In 2006, Chinese entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities altogether found 2,458 batches of foodstuffs not meeting the standards at ports of entry. In the first half of 2007, some 896 were found, which were returned, destroyed or used in other ways according to law. Thus is the safety of food imported for the Chinese market assured.

-Complete quality and safety supervisory system. While carrying out inspection and quarantine in accordance with law, the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities pay special attention to higher-risk food and problematic foodstuffs as found in the inspection and quarantine at the ports of entry. The authorities promptly issue early warnings of risks when finding imported food with serious problems or the same type of imported food with repeated problems, and take such measures as increasing the proportion of sample survey, adding more items for inspection, and suspending import.

-Strict system against illegal import. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the General Administration of Customs have set up a cooperation mechanism to jointly fight illegal food imports. In 2006, China signed with the European Union Commission the Arrangement for Cooperation on Joint Prevention of Illegal Actions in the Import and Export of Food, making it clear that the two sides will crack down on such illegal activities as deception, undeclared carrying, illegal transit and smuggling through exchanges of information, technological cooperation, mutual visits of experts and special joint actions. In 2006 and the first half of 2007, 12,292 tons of illegally imported meat were seized.

(To be continued)