Food for Japan closely inspected

Chinese farm product exporters are being urged to strengthen inspections of food in a bid to deal with Japan's new law on food imports.

The law, which took effect yesterday, is called the "positive list" system and features new tests including whether pesticides and other chemicals have been left in food.

The Japanese Government said the law was aimed at improving the quality of imported food and banning the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides on agricultural products.

"We expect domestic farm product exporters to improve their management skills in production and their ability in inspections to avoid any possible risks in exports to Japan," said Chong Quan, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce.

Japan is China's largest export market for farm products, accounting for one-third of the total amount exported. Nearly 40 per cent of China's agricultural export firms see Japan as their leading market.

Chong said the law was "expected to have a large impact on Sino-Japanese farm trade."
He expected Japan to make an effort to insure normal farm trade continued between the two countries and said the Chinese Government had adopted measures to minimize the impact on Chinese farmers.

The commerce ministry and relevant government agencies held training courses for export enterprises across China beginning from the end of 2005. Over 4,000 people, from about one-third of the companies that export agricultural products to Japan, attended.

The ministry is continuing to provide exporters with up-to-date information on the new law.

According to Japanese figures, there are now over 97,000 limitation standards for imported farm products in the new law on 135 kinds of foods and 724 kinds of pesticide. In the previous law, there were 9,000 limitation standards on 130 kinds of imported farm products and 229 kinds of pesticide.

Meanwhile, Chong said the European Union Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, is scheduled to visit China on June 5.

He is expected to have talks with his Chinese counterpart, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, on a range of issues such as bilateral trade, market economy status, intellectual property right protection and the Doha Development Agenda.