China is to launch a nationwide campaign on improving food safety in mid-December to better protect its children and teenagers, Cheng Zhigang, a spokesman with the campaign leading group, said here on Sunday.

Initiated by China Soong Ching Ling Foundation last August, the campaign was jointly launched by 11 government departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, ministries of education, agriculture, commerce and health and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

"Its goal is to spread food safety and nutrition knowledge to children and their parents, help youngsters have healthy dietary habits and regulate domestic food market", said Cheng.

During the campaign, the organizer will adopt tangible measures including establishing a special fund for children's food safety, formulating national standards for food quality catering for children and supervising food quality in groceries and supermarkets in rural areas.

Official figures show that China has more than 400 million children and teenagers under the age of 18.

Several leading domestic food and beverage enterprises have also been involved in this endeavor including the country's leading fruit juice maker Huiyuan Group, the first strategic partner of the campaign.

"The reason why our company began to put out the country's first series of tailor-made nutritious juice products for children at present after collecting 15 years of manufacturing experience is that we regard food quality as the top priority," Zhu Xinli, Chairman of Huiyuan, told Xinhua at Friday's new product launch ceremony.

"The world's most advanced PET sterilized cold filling technique is employed in the manufacturing process and all the packaging materials are safe environment-friendly materials," said Li Ying, project manager of the children-customized juice products.

In recent months, Chinese industries have been the focus of numerous reports about substandard products, especially food. The scandals have included vegetables containing pesticide residue, fish contaminated with suspected carcinogens and eggs tainted with the industrial dye Sudan Red.

"The future of our nation lies in children's hands and food and beverage companies should provide them with healthy and nutritious food," said Zhu Xinli, also a member of the campaign's expert panel.

In response to the reported scandals, the Chinese government introduced a new recall system last summer, began a four-month nationwide product quality campaign ending in December and issued a measure that requires labeling of all food exports with an inspection and quarantine symbol.

Official statistics revealed that, 626 criminal cases involving774 suspects had been filed over substandard food and drug products by early November.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi on Nov. 30 called on the country's quality watchdogs to beef up quality checks of food ahead of the coming Christmas and New Year holidays. 

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2007)