Seventy-two percent of Chinese consumers care about pesticide residue on vegetables and fruits, and 85 percent are concerned about food expiration dates, said Huang Hai, assistant minister of commerce in Beijing Monday at a press conference on food security.

The Chinese people are paying more attention to food security than before, with 47.9 percent concerned about relevant quality certificates and 22.3 percent valuing the appearance of food products, Huang said.

"More and more consumers will use various means to safeguard their own interests when meeting food security problems," he said.     

The Chinese government attaches great importance to the food security problem, launching a national project to secure food safety, he said, noting that two national standards on rural products retailing and wholesaling as well as regulations on green market authentication have been formulated.

During the project, inspectors of about 800 markets have received special training and 61 green market authentication assessors have passed tests, he said.

He acknowledged that the government is continuing to improve the national file systems on enterprise's food safety credit and enhance supervision on those farm-product markets having passed national green market authentication.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, two fairs on green consumption of meat-related products and tea products will be respectively held in Beijing from November 16-18 2005 and Guangzhou, capital city of southern Guangdong Province from November 25-28 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2005)