Starting from this year, Beijing will further reinforce chastisement on dishonest acts, effect all-sided implementation of market access system, and carry out compulsory withdrawal system against unsafe food. In accordance with administrative regulations on callback and compulsory withdrawal of unsafe food from the market, Beijing will force withdrawal of products, enterprises or regions based on different degrees of harm.

During an interview with Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday, Beijing Food Safety Office vice director Wang Jianhua said that the city will roundly implement the system of enterprises' voluntary callback of unsafe food and force compulsory withdrawal of unsafe food which enterprises refuse to call back voluntarily. In the meantime, Beijing will reinforce punishment on unsafe food and their proprietors, include them in Beijing's enterprise credit administrative system and food safety credit monitoring and supervising system, and put their operational acts such as investment under control of a number of relevant departments.

Since 2003, Beijing has made quick tests on 86,094 samples of fresh meat, cooked meat products, vegetables, soy, vinegar and other food products, and regulated the market by putting all unqualified food off counter around the city in four hours.

At present, Beijing has set up the food market access system and carried out 12 different measures such as standard access on 37 critical food categories. All 21 large farm and sideline product wholesale markets in the city have signed cooperation agreements with large modernized meat producing plants and "green" vegetable production bases, and all 378 retail markets have signed wholesale-retail linkage agreements with the above wholesale markets. Nearly 60,000 types of food on sale in Beijing have registered market access according to law.

(Chinanews.cn January 4, 2006)