"Mutual trust should be given top priority in building a strategic relationship of mutual benefits, to which the two countries are committed," he said.

Wang Shouwen, director of the Foreign Trade Department under Chen's ministry, told the press conference that the food trade between China and Japan was complementary.

"China's food exports have satisfied much Japanese consumer demand," he said, noting that a quarter of China's food exports went to Japan. Those exports accounted for 16 percent of Japanese food imports.

"Today, 90 percent of the garlic, peanuts and mushroom on the dining tables of Japanese people are imported from China," he said.

China is Japan's largest trading partner, while Japan is China's third-largest trading partner.

In January, Japanese media reported that some people fell ill after eating frozen meat dumplings produced by the Tianyang Food Plant based in north China's Hebei Province.

After thorough investigation, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in late February that the incident was an individual deliberate case, not a case of food safety resulting from pesticide residue.

Further cooperation between China and Japan would be required to investigate the incident, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a separate news conference on Wednesday.

"We hope that relevant departments on both sides, the police in particular, can have more communication and cooperation in a cool-headed, fair, objective and scientific manner to conduct a coordinated investigation and find the truth as early as possible," Yang said.

He believed it necessary to establish a long-term China-Japan food safety cooperation mechanism to carry out more timely and effective cooperation, adding both sides expected such a mechanism could soon be set up.

The foreign minister stressed that China had conducted a serious, responsible investigation into the incident and had quickly released initial results since the government had taken safety seriously and responsibly for local and foreign consumers.

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2008)