China's top quality control chief urged foreign media to stick
to the truth in reporting during an interview with CCTV on
Wednesday, a second time in a few days for him to lash out at some
foreign media exaggerating China's food safety problems and
stirring consumer panic.
Li Changjiang, minister of the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also stressed again that
Chinese exports, especially food exports, are absolutely well
guaranteed in terms of safety.
His remark came after a Chinese rubber company was cleared of
the accusation of producing unsafe tires exported to the United
States, which were previously held responsible for a traffic
accident that killed two in Pennsylvania last August.
The U.S. importer - Foreign Tyre Sales, Inc. (FTS), which
earlier blamed the Chinese tires for the accident, said in the
latest report released on July 2 that the Chinese-made tires
involved in the accident far exceeded the U.S. Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards, and the van in the accident was equipped
with tires in two different sizes, three Chinese tires and one
Michelin tyre.
The real cause of the fatal accident was the misuse of the
tires, said Shen Jinrong, the board chairman of Hangzhou Zhongce
Rubber Co.Ltd.
"It was irresponsible for some foreign media to blame the
Chinese-made tires without any analysis immediately after the
accident happened," Li said during the interview while commenting
on the issue.
Due to the incident, the Chinese rubber company, which has been
in the U.S. market for 20 years without such quality complaints,
was ordered to recall a total of 450,000 tires. The U.S. hearing of
the case is scheduled on Wednesday.
Li said recent Japanese reports claimed that Chinese-made
boilers contained excessive lead. However, tests done by three
Japanese inspection organizations showed that the lead contained in
Chinese boilers was only about half of that in Japanese ones.
Li continued to say that the Chinese government has always
attached great importance to quality control of products,
especially food products and have worked hard to ensure food
safety.
He said the record shows that between 2004 and 2006, 99 or more
than 99 percent of Chinese exports to the U.S. were up to the
quality standard, which is the same or even better than the U.S.
exports to China, and Chinese exports to Japan and the European
Union enjoyed even higher record.
"It's unreasonable to think that Chinese products have become
unsafe overnight, as China has been importing goods to the U.S. and
other countries for quite a long time," said Li.
However, he also acknowledged that there were problems in the
country's food safety, and some enterprises, small ones in
particular, were found to have used food additives or non-food
materials.
Food safety problems actually exist in many countries, and we
need more cooperation from other countries to improve the food
safety, Li said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2007)