The top quality watchdog yesterday began a 10-day crackdown on illegal alcohol production in four provinces, as a curtain raiser to a series of food safety and product quality inspections.

Inspectors in East China's Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces kicked off the campaign with raids on 144 alcohol production facilities in four cities near the provincial border where alcohol producers are concentrated.

Twenty-three of them were found to be operating without production licenses, while 83 were classed as small-scale plants with less than 10 employees.

Inspectors seized 6.58 tons of possibly unsafe alcohol and 4.6 tons of raw materials, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.

Yan Fengmin, deputy director of the administration's law enforcement and supervision department, who is heading a working group in Zhejiang, told China Daily that producers who failed to meet the national standards would be either closed down or ordered to make improvements.

He said the administration paid close attention to alcohol quality because it was a popular drink in the country.

"More importantly, its quality directly affects the safety of the public," he said.

According to a circular from the administration, the crackdown mainly targets unlicensed producers and the use of industrial alcohol and illegal additives in liquor. The crackdown also aims to set up an inter-provincial coordination mechanism on quality control.

The crackdown is the first of many safety inspections to be launched after the State Council started a "special battle" against poor product quality late last month.

(China Daily September 6, 2007)