China’s Export Food Safety Guaranteed.doc

China?s Export Food Safety Guaranteed China is a large importer and exporter of foodstuffs,with the amount of each growing steadily in recentyears. Statistics released by the State Council in thisAugust show that the import and export volume in 2006 totaledUS$40.448 billion-worth (excluding wheat, corn and soybean,same below), up 21.45% year on year. (See Figure 1) Safety of export food guaranteed In 2006, China exported 24.173 million tons of food, worthUS$ 26.659 billion, up 13.29% and 16.0% year on year, respec-tively. The top ten varieties in terms of export value were aquat-ic products, processed aquatic products, vegetables, cannedfood, juices and drinks, processed grain products, seasonings,poultry products, alcoholic beverages, and livestock meat andchopped entrails. Foodstuffs of the Mainland China have been exportedto more than 200 countries and regions, of which the top tenin terms of trade volume are Japan, the U.S., the ROK, HongKong, Russia, Germany, Malaysia, Holland, Indonesia and theUK. (See Figure 2) For many years, over 99% of China’s exported foodstuffshave been up to standard. In 2006 and the first half of 2007, China exported to the U.S.some 94,000 batches and 55,000 batches of foodstuffs, respec-tively, and 752 batches and 477 batches of each were found bythe U.S. to be substandard, making the acceptance rate 99.2%and 99.1%, respectively. In the case of the EU, the figures were 91,000 batches and62,000 batches, with 91 batches and 135 batches found by theEU to be substandard, making the acceptance rate 99.9% and99.8%, respectively. On July 20, 2007, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Wel-fare of Japan, the largest importer of Chinese food, releasedan examination report on food imported from China in 2006,which showed that Japan conducted more sample surveys onChinese food (15.7%) than on food from anywhere else, but Chi-nese food had the highest acceptance rate (99.42%), followed bythat imported from the EU (99.38%) and