By Xinhua writers Wu Chen, Wu Qiong

    BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- China, recently in the media spotlight for food safety issues, was put well on track to better food safety, as the country went all out to ensure safety of its food products and restore consumer confidence home and abroad.

    The country's efforts to this end seem to have accelerated last month.

    It issued the first white paper on food safety on Aug. 17 and put Vice Premier Wu Yi to head a high-profile panel on product quality and safety issues, followed by a string of efforts made by various government organs in the recent month to crack down on food safety issue.

    On Aug. 31, the quality watchdog officially introduced the nation's landmark recall systems for unsafe food products and toys amid efforts to improve product safety, charging producers with prior and major responsibilities for preventing and eliminating unsafe food and toys.

    Food safety became a rising concern among Chinese citizens after a series of food contamination accidents occurred across the country in recent months.

    Last November, the country's food safety watchdog found that seven companies were producing red-yolk eggs contaminated with dangerous red Sudan dyes, supposed to be used in the leather and fabric industries, but banned for food use.

    In the same month, Shanghai police arrested three people who were adding three to four grams of banned steroid drug to each ton of pig feed to increase lean meat. The steroids, which prevent pigs from accumulating fat, are poisonous to humans. More than 300 people fell ill after eating the meat.

    Also last year, carcinogenic residues were detected in turbot sold on markets in Beijing and Shanghai.

    Even international fast food giant KFC was accused of adding cancer-causing Sudan 1 to its roast chicken wings.

    Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that in the first half of this year, China reported 134 food poisoning cases, which poisoned 4,457 people and killed 96.

    Food is China's biggest industry with the 2006 output estimated at 2.4 trillion yuan (315.8 billion U.S. dollars), according to the China National Food Industry Association, and eating is vitally important for Chinese people.

    Meanwhile, there were bitter stories when people fell victim to food safety threats.

    In June of 2006, more than 130 people contracted parasitic disease after eating undercooked snails in a restaurant. Yang and his family, including his parents, his wife and his 18-month daughter were among them.

    The Beijing Health Bureau said the infection was caused by undercooking in the restaurant, which failed to eradicate eel worms on the snails.

Although he survived the deadly disease, Yang still suffers aches and pains in his lower body and stomach and now regards food, once a great pleasure, as a potential threat.

In overseas market, a growing list of substandard exports from China since March, ranging from pet foods to drugs, toothpastes, toys, aquatic products and tyres, has sparked wide concern about "Made in China" labels.

    Medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol imported from China was blamed for the dozens of deaths in Panama, and deaths of dogs and cats in North America were attributed to tainted Chinese wheat gluten.

    When it comes to public food safety, ordinary Chinese are not well- informed, and have to rely on government administrations. Jing Luyan, 24, who works in a Beijing-based travel agency, said she trusts the government and the media for information on food safety issues.

    "If they say I shouldn't eat something, then I stop immediately, simple as that," she said, adding many of her colleagues and friends do the same.

    Pressure from home and abroad first prompted the Chinese government to acknowledge that the country's food and drug safety situation is unsatisfactory and enhanced supervision is needed.

    At a press conference held in July, China's food and drug watchdog spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said "As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak. Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about".

    The press conference was jointly held by five major ministries in charge of food safety, namely the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), the Ministry of Health (MOH), the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), and the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA).

    It was a rare attempt made by the Chinese government to seriously address the issue, and a series of measures to be taken were enumerated at the conference.

    However, it failed to offer a convincing mechanism for coordinating work among the five ministries, leaving the murky regulation of food safety unresolved.

    There have been worries about China's supervision over food safety, as at least five ministries were put in charge of food safety issues and coordination among them was no easy job.

    Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said earlier new laws were needed to strengthen food safety supervision by coordinating the duties of relevant government agencies.

    Yet, the Chinese government stepped up its efforts since then, to address the issue amid far-flung concern over China's food safety home and abroad.

    China's first-ever 39-page white paper published recently sets forth a series of achievements along with planned measures to improve food quality, from establishing a national food recall system to increasing exchanges with quality officials from other countries.

    Vice Premier Wu Yi's panel, meant to address the country's problems in food safety and product quality, partly dispelled people's concerns over a loose supervision on food safety due to too many regulators.

    Analysts believed that the newly established panel led by Wu Yi would improve the efficiency of supervision.

    The government also started a four-month nationwide campaign to improve the quality of goods and food safety. Vice Premier Wu Yi described the campaign as a "special battle" to ensure public health and interests and uphold the reputation of Chinese products.

    The campaign will target farm produce, processed food, the catering sector, drugs, pork, imported and exported goods and products closely linked to human safety and health.

    Luo Yunbo, dean of the food science and nutritional engineering school of China Agricultural University, said the white paper offers authoritative information on food safety in China, and the latest moves underscored the government's determination to improve product quality after a spate of safety accidents.

    The paper also said the proportion of Chinese food products that passed quality inspections had risen steadily in recent years, up from 77.9 percent last year to current figure of 85.1 percent.

    As for small food processors, which are believed to be a major food safety threat in China, the paper said the country would make small-scale producers to unite into large ones while keeping a closer eye on safety accidents.

    Almost 80 percent of China's food producers are small workshops employing fewer than 10 workers, however, they produced less than 10 percent of the goods on the market, according to the paper.

    By the end of June, the government has weeded out 5,631 unqualified small producers, forced 8,814 producers to stop production, and asked 5,385 companies to improve their production, the paper said.

    The number of small food producers would drop by 50 percent by 2010, said the quality supervision administration after the country published its first-ever five-year plan on food safety in May, and the government wants to ensure that by 2012 no uncertified producers remain.

    China is also seriously addressing overseas concerns over Chinese food exports. It has shut down the factory linked to dozens of deaths in Panama from tainted medicine, and two companies that exported tainted wheat and corn protein which end up in pet food in the United States and led to a number of dog and cat deaths in North America.

    The country's top quality watchdog has announced that all major food exports produced from Sept. 1 onwards must carry labels to show they have passed inspection so as to halt illegal exports and bolster consumer confidence in the quality and safety of Chinese foods.

    The white paper reveals that the acceptance rate of Chinese foodstuffs exported to the EU stood at 99.8 percent in the first half, followed by those exported to the United States, with the acceptance rate of 99.1 percent.

    Japanes quarantine authorities found Chinese food exports had the highest acceptance rate at 99.42 percent, followed by the EU (99.38 percent) and the United States (98.69 percent).

    However, a better food safety record will not come overnight, and people seem differed on what they should do as individuals.

    Jing Luyan is fond of tasting different flavors of food, especially traditional Beijing snack food. However, traditional snacks are usually cooked in shabby restaurants in small alleys.

    "I believe that the most delicious food can hardly ever be found in swanky establishments with irreproachable hygiene conditions," Jing said, adding that she never fell ill after eating food from street corner stalls.

    Yang Fangfang, who has worked in foreign countries, including the United States, France, South Africa and Fiji, for several years, said the most important thing is to help citizens develop a sense of food safety.

    Yang and his family have become much more cautious about food safety after the accident. "We carefully choose food for ourselves and our children, and will definitely teach them about the importance of food safety," he said.

    "I believe the government supervision system will work in the long run, but right now people have no option but to learn to protect themselves," Yang said.