Market watchdogs ensure food safety in China's flood-hit regions

BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities are strengthening food safety inspections during the rainy season, especially in the northern and northeastern regions that have been inundated by floods due to heavy rains.

Market regulators in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, where torrential rains and floods took a heavy toll over the past few weeks, are conducting inspections on food production enterprises in disaster-stricken areas to eliminate hidden risks.

In Beijing, market supervision departments in Mentougou, Fangshan and Changping districts have scrutinized 1,260 companies, including 102 food production companies, 871 catering service providers, 274 food distribution companies, and 13 farm produce markets.

Food safety inspectors also provided guidance and assistance to the enterprises to help them resume production and operation smoothly.

In Tianjin, the municipal market supervision committee has supervised food suppliers to provide a total of 100,000 safe meals for thousands of people, including disaster-relief workers.

Inspections have been carried out on 1,423 food production companies and 16,684 food retailers in Hebei. So far, no cases of food-borne diseases or illegal practice of selling spoiled food have been reported in the disaster-hit areas in the province.

The State Administration for Market Regulation recently demanded that local market supervision agencies should enhance food safety supervision, especially in flood-hit regions, in an effort to prevent food contamination and unqualified, contaminated products from entering the market.

Government data showed that prices of rice, flour, cooking oil, meat, eggs and milk have remained basically stable due to sufficient supply in flood-hit regions. But the prices of vegetables have gone slightly upward due to a fall in production and disruption to transport in the aftermath of the floods.