Current Measures Taken by Chinese Government to strengthen Product Quality and Food Safety

August 27, 2007

General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ)

Chinese government attaches great importance to product quality and food safety. The executive meeting of the State Council on July 25 deliberated and passed a draft special regulation on the supervision of product and food safety and made the decision to set up a leading group of the State Council on product quality and food safety. On July 27, the State Council held a national work meeting on quality to which Premier Wen Jiabao was present and gave an important address. A circular of the State Council on strengthening product quality and food safety was published after the meeting.

I. Information about the Leading Group of the State Council on product quality and food safety

The General Office of the State Council formally published ?Circular of the General Office of the State Council on Establishing a Leading Group of the State Council on Product Quality and Food Safety? on August 13. Vice Premier of the State Council was appointed head of the Leading Group and Minister Li Changjiang of AQSIQ and Vice Secretary-General Xiang Zhaolun of the State Council deputy heads. The members of the Leading Group consist of leaders from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Supervision, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Health, General Administration of Customs, State Administration of Taxation, State Administration for Industry and Commerce, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, State Food and Drug Administration, Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council and Information Office of the State Council.

1. Main functions of the Leading Group: overall plan and comprehensive coordination on significant problems of product quality and food safety and uniform deployment of major actions; supervision and inspection on the implementation and progress of relevant policies on product quality and food safety. Through comprehensive coordination on significant problems and uniform deployment of major actions, there will be a composition of forces from not only divisions of duties but also collaboration and cooperation so as to promote the work in product quality and food safety in an all-round way.

2. Main functions of the working mechanism

There is a General Office subordinate to the Leading Group of the State Council on product quality and food safety, which is set in AQSIQ with Minister Li Changjiang as the director of the General Office. The main functions of the General Office are fulfilling the regular work of the Leading Group, conducting study and recommendation on the policies of strengthening product quality and food safety, supervising and inspecting the implementation of the decisions by the Leading Group, carrying out investigation and study, analyzing public feelings, and publishing information. There are four professional subgroups subordinate to the General Office, namely, the subgroup of agricultural product rectification, the subgroup of food and relevant consumer product rectification, the subgroup of drug rectification and the information subgroup.

The subgroup of agricultural product rectification is set in the Ministry of Agriculture with the participation of National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Commerce, General Administration of Customs, State Administration for Industry and Commerce and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine; the subgroup of food and relevant consumer product rectification is set in the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine with the participation of National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Health, General Administration of Customs, State Administration of Taxation and State Food and Drug Administration; the subgroup of drug rectification is set in the State Food and Drug Administration with the participation of National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Health, State Administration for Industry and Commerce and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine; and the information subgroup is set in the State Council Information Office with the participation of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Health, State Administration for Industry and Commerce, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and State Food and Drug Administration.

II. Information about the special rectifications

In accordance with the uniform deployment of the Leading Group of the State Council, there will be four-month special rectifications of product quality and food safety all through the country from late August to the end of December.

1. General requirements

Through intensive rectifications on key products, key entities and key regions, a chain of supervision on the entire production process of industrial products all through the designing of products, the introduction of raw materials, manufacturing and processing, marketing and service shall be established and developed, so shall be a chain of supervision of the entire production process of food all through cultivating and breeding, manufacturing and processing, distributing and marketing, and catering, as well as a trace back and accountability system of product quality and food safety and a comprehensive quality monitoring network all over the society so as to raise China's product quality and food safety to a new level.

2. Key points of the rectifications

The key points of the rectifications lie in three aspects, namely, key products, key entities and key regions. Key products refer to edible agricultural products, food, drugs, consumer products and so on; key entities refer to vegetable production bases, large scale livestock, poultry and aquatic product farms, slaughterhouses, feed processing plants, food producing and processing enterprises and small workshops, agricultural sideline product wholesale markets, fresh product supermarkets, small groceries, small restaurants, pharmaceutical industries and enterprises and so on; key regions refer to rural areas and urban-rural fringes, food production intensive areas, areas with outstanding problem of production without license, as well as areas with repetitious production and sale of fake products.

3. Main mission and objectives