Recently Chinese exports have been under the spotlight due to "problems" with quality. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of efficient supervision over food safety at a conference of the State Council on July 25. At the same time, the conference approved a draft special regulation on the supervision over food safety.

The premier said the issue of product quality and food safety is closely linked with people's lives, the reputation of producers and the image of the nation. Concerned departments at all levels must attach great importance to the issue.

The nation must establish a rigorous network to realize effective supervision over processing, packaging, delivery and sale of products and accelerate the establishment of national standard systems to equal international standards, Wen said.

He also said the nation would continue to publicize periodic reports on product information and recall defective products in time. Meanwhile, China would strengthen cooperation with foreign countries in handling the issue and improve law enforcement on product quality problems, he said.

The State Council has decided to form a leading group for product quality and food safety to help resolve any related disputes, according to the conference.

A press conference on July 10 brought together the major watchdogs of the country's food quality after an avalanche of media criticism over food safety. During the press conference officials frankly acknowledged the problems they have been encountering and outlined steps to tackle them.

"As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late with weak foundations," said Yan Jiangying, spokeswoman for the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). "Therefore, the situation is not very satisfactory."

Li Yuanping, head of the import and export safety bureau with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), said there is no doubt that most of its exports are up to standard as China follows very strict rules regarding food exports.

China has established a complete set of laws and regulations related to product quality and food safety. There are 11 laws and 17 rules related to food exports, as well as around 100 regulations drafted by varied ministries for food supervision. At the same time, China follows a strict administrative mechanism overseeing the whole process of food production, from the farm or breeding facilities, to the packaging process, and later through the shipping procedures.

Lin Wei, Deputy Director General of the AQSIQ's import and export food safety bureau, said that food exported from China that meets the requirements of the importers must go through a strict five-step administrative inspection procedure as follows:

First is the inspection and quarantine record-keeping of planting and breeding farms. Only those registered are eligible to provide raw materials for export-oriented food production plants. Second is sanitary registration of food production plants that export their products. Only registered plants are permitted to produce food for export. Third is monitoring by entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities during the food production process. Fourth is that exported food has to be labeled or marked as required so as to make it easier for quality traces and recalls, and illegal enterprises will be blacklisted. The final step is the pre-export batch-by-batch inspection by entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities. Only qualified food will be permitted to export.

In China, several central government departments are involved in quality control, including the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), responsible for agricultural products, the Ministry of Health, responsible for hygiene, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), which monitors food products in circulation, and the AQSIQ, which oversees the production, processing and export of food, and the SFDA, which is responsible for comprehensive supervision, coordination and food safety crisis management.

The five departments play their roles respectively in the food export process. For example, when a food safety assessment is demanded, the Ministry of Health will organize a team of experts. When it is a problem in the circulation chain, it's the job of the SAIC, and if it's a production and processing problem, the AQSIQ will recall the food and carry out punishments on the manufacturers. The Ministry of Agriculture takes action when the problem is traced back to the planting and cultivation process.

Despite all these efforts in legislation and supervision, it's been a headache for the AQSIQ to see the number of complaints over exported food quality that have come across their desks.

Li Changjiang, head of the AQSIQ, said officials were focusing on stricter market access requirements for companies, conducting random checks and beefing up product testing.

Li said that according to China's Law on Import and Export Commodity Inspection, export commodities subject to compulsory inspection must be inspected by the commodity inspection authorities or inspection organizations. For those not in the list for compulsory inspection, the AQSIQ will conduct random checks and the manufacturers should entrust related inspection organizations with the inspection to ensure their products meet the requirements of importers.

Individual enterprises' failures in this respect have led to the recent quality problems of some of China's exports, said Li.

Yet he stressed that China was not the only one with similar problem, citing comments by World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan this week that the agency receives about 200 reports of food safety problems every month from its 193 member states.

Lin of the AQSIQ defended the quality of China's exports, saying that recent problems, including the scare over pet food exported to North America, are only exceptions, often involving unlicensed or illegal companies.

"Investigations have shown these are only individual cases," Lin said at the same press conference. "We have taken tough measures against unlicensed companies which have been the source of such problems."

"No one in the world can ensure zero risk, and similarly, no food is 100 percent qualified," said Li Yuanping. "Problems with a few companies should not be taken to mean that the system as a whole is riddled with holes."

He said such misconceptions have seriously harmed the reputation of Chinese products, are a huge impediment to Chinese exports, and have caused great losses.

Furthermore, in another bid to weed out illegal export companies, the food safety watchdog has published a blacklist of companies that have breached safety rules and regulations on its website and has stripped them of their export rights.

So far, more than 99 percent of Chinese food exports to the United States, in the past three years, have met quality standards. This is about the same, or even higher, than the equivalent figure of U.S. food exports to China, according to Li.

I. Major Laws related to Food Exports:

- Food Hygiene Law of the People's Republic of China

- Law of the People's Republic of China on the Entry and Exit Animal and Plant Quarantine

- Law of the People's Republic of China on Import and Export Commodity Inspection

- Law of the People's Republic of China on Product Quality

- Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China

- Frontier Health and Quarantine Law of the People's Republic of China

- Agricultural Products Quantity and Safety Law of the People's Republic of China

II. Stipulations on veterinary quarantine and hygiene inspection of exported food:

Exported food should be inspected as required if the hygiene authorities of the importer, or the export contract, have special requirements or detailed stipulations on the food's veterinary quarantine, hygiene and quality; otherwise, the inspection will follow national food safety standards or inspection standards on the quality of exported food.

III. Stipulations on inspecting and releasing exported food at customs:

1. Veterinary certificates and sanitary certificates should be signed and issued for qualified exported food after inspection; release permits should be signed and issued or export commodity declaration forms must be stamped with permission for commodities for which veterinary certificates and sanitary certificates are not required by importers. All these commodities should be registered within the stipulated period of validity, and the above-mentioned certificates and permits will not be granted to products from export food manufacturers without a registration certificate and the ratification number.

2. Customs should release all exported food only according to the inspection certificate signed and issued by entry-exit inspection and quarantine institutions or the release permit stamp on the export commodity declaration form.