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.