On July 15th, Mr.Li Changjiang, Minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China made comments on China's food safety during an inspection of food enterprises in Beijing.

Mr.Li said," some foreign media, especially those based in the United States, have wantonly reported on so called unsafe Chinese products. They are turning white to black. One company's problem does not constitute a country's problem. You cannot jump to the conclusion that all that country's food is unsafe if certain food product is found below standard."

Statistics shows that in the past three years, 99%,99% and 99.2% of Chinese food export to the US met quality standards, higher than 99% on average. In the same period, the equivalent figures for US food exports to China was 99.02%, 98.85% and 99.08% respectively. This indicates that the quality ratio of Chinese food exports to the US were higher than that of US food exports to China," said Minister Li.

Mr.Li conceded that there were problems with certain domestic companies but pointed out that the problems were caused by illegal export activities and negligence of food quality control by some enterprises. In an effort to further upgrade the quality and safety standards of food exports, the Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China has taken five additional measures,including increasing checks and tests, and putting labels on sale and transportation packages of all food exports that have passed quality inspection and quarantine checks.