A national food quality campaign was launched in early 2001.

Various departments under the State Council jointly established a special office last year to crack down on illegal food products according to relative regulations and laws, such as the Law on Food Hygiene.

From the beginning of the campaign to the end of November last year, health inspectors had confiscated 55,000 tons of food products, valued at 317 million yuan (US$38 million).

A total of 202,900 illegal manufacturing sites of poor-quality food have been closed, and 548 suspects involved in these cases have been sent to court.

However, health officials face many difficulties in implementing the law and superivising the market, said Zhang Jinjing, an official from the Department of Health Legislation and Inspection of the Ministry of Health.

Zhang told China Daily that many local governments try to shield producers of poor-quality foodstuffs from the law, in order to keep local enterprises open.

Zhang added that the 100,000 officials who are trying to ensure that the law is obeyed must work harder in such a big market which has nearly 1.3 billion people.

In the first 10 months of 2002, a total of 114 people were killed in 104 major food poisoning accidents which poisoned 5,900 people, although this is respectively 12.7 per cent, 43.8 per cent and 56 per cent lower than the figures for the same period of 2001, according to the Ministry of Health

Despite this, food poisoning remains a serious problem threatening people's health, Zhang noted. Experts estimate that the number of cases is bigger than that reported to the Ministry of Health.

Poor quality ingredients, poor hygiene conditions in food producing and transportation, and at restaurants, as well as a lack of effective supervision are major causes of so many poisoning accidents.

(China Daily March 15, 2003)