More than 1,400 substandard slaughterhouses have been shut down
in the past three months under a special campaign to improve
product quality and food safety, a commerce ministry official said
yesterday.
By mid-November, 1,112 pig-slaughter enterprises were closed
because they did not meet national standards and another 340 shut
down for violating industry regulations, Xu Xihe, deputy director
of the ministry's department of market operation regulation, told a
Beijing forum on China's meat product safety and trade
development.
The closures were ordered during an inspection of all the 23,052
slaughterhouses in the country.
The crackdown also targeted illegal slaughter, which has
increased following substantial pork price rises since May, Xu
said.
By mid-November, 6,396 unlicensed slaughterhouses had been
banned from business and 1.94 million kg of pork products
confiscated as a result of joint action by police, agriculture,
commerce and quality inspection and quarantine authorities.
To monitor pork supply from pig-raising, slaughtering and
processing to distribution and consumption, the authorities have
established a "farm to table" inspection scheme, Xu said.
"All the pork in cities and 95 percent in villages now comes
from licensed slaughterhouses; in cities and towns, 100 percent of
the pork sold or used in markets, supermarkets and restaurants is
from registered slaughterhouses," he said.
Per capita annual consumption of pork is 40 kg in cities and 20
kg in villages; and the nation is one of the largest meat consumers
in the world.
The nationwide inspection of slaughter enterprises is part of
the campaign the central government launched in August to improve
product quality.
Concerns over product safety prompted the government to form a
Cabinet-level panel on food safety and quality control led by
Vice-Premier Wu Yi.
Eight categories of products including pork, drugs and toys are
under scrutiny.
(China Daily December 7, 2007)