National testing indicates formaldehyde levels in Chinese beers and imported brands are all at levels safe for drinking, top Chinese quality assurance watchdogs said yesterday.

Some 221 kinds of beer, including 157 domestic brands and 64 imported ones, were tested in 19 provinces and regions this week. Results showed formaldehyde content was all below 0.9 milligrams per liter.

Both World Health Organization and Chinese health authorities require formaldehyde content in drinking water to be below 0.9 milligrams per liter. According to Chinese law, the amount of formaldehyde in common beer may not exceed 2 milligrams per liter.

The beer tested in the Chinese market contains less formaldehyde than that and was even lower than the drinking water standards, Ji Zhengkun said. The tests effectively put to bed false rumors that have been circulating that the beer being brewed in China was tainted.

Ji, director of the quality supervision department of the general administration, made the remarks at a press conference yesterday in Beijing.

Formaldehyde content checks on 23 kinds of products from eight well-known breweries, such as Tsingtao, Yanjing and Zhujiang, showed levels between 0.10 - 0.56 milligrams per liter. Tests from 64 kinds of imported beers from 10 countries, such as the United States and Japan, showed levels from 0.10 to 0.61 milligrams per liter.

The eight well-known Chinese beer brands, occupying at least 60 percent market share in China, are as good as international brands, Ji said.

"So we can say that domestic beer is safe and consumers can drink them without any worrying about health problems caused by formaldehyde," Ji noted.

The national tests were completed to refute a rumor recently circulated by some Chinese newspapers, including the Globe Times, which groundlessly reported that the average formaldehyde content of Chinese beer was as high as 1.2 milligrams per liter, Ji said.

Formaldehyde is a chemical agent that can be used as an additive during the brewing of beer for preventing sediment from forming during storage. A certain amount of formaldehyde is produced during the process of fermentation of beer itself, experts said.

Test results also show that foreign consumers and companies do not need to worry about the quality of Chinese beer, said Li Yuanping, director-general of China's Import and Export Food Safety Bureau.

Moreover, all the exported beer from China is made strictly according to standards required by the importing countries, Li said.

According to research results in the United States, if a person drinks 12 milligrams of formaldehyde every day, she or he will be at risk of suffering cancer, Liu Zhaobin, spokesman of the general administration, said.

The majority of Chinese companies produce beer with modern technology and equipment imported from developed countries, including the United States and Germany, Ji said.

Since 2002, the production of Chinese beer has been No 1 in the world, and the value of exported Chinese beer has reached US$76 million, Ji said.

(China Daily July 16, 2005)