(CN) Food industry feels WTO effect as standards raised

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

http://china.scmp.com/chitoday/ZZZFLBS3GXC.html

Friday, February 15, 2002

ANALYSIS by JASPER BECKER in Beijing

 

China is tightening up health standards for its food products,

the first consequence of its entry into the World Trade Organisation.

 

Foreign veterinary inspectors have been allowed full access to

Chinese facilities for the first time as China sharpens up its own

bureaucratic weapons to keep out imports such as American soybeans that

might be genetically modified.

 

A European Union decision to suspend imports of animal products

was behind Beijing's decision to lift domestic food quality standards.

 

Last year, for the first time, EU veterinary and sanitary

experts were permitted to inspect poultry farms under WTO regulations.

 

In the past, they were never permitted to see the entire process

of meat production, only the slaughtering facilities.

 

What the experts discovered was that China's huge battery farms

were using methods banned over a decade ago in Europe, such as the injection

of growth hormones and antibiotics.

 

These and similar discoveries forced the European Commission in

Brussels to suspend imports of rabbit meat, poultry, honey, molluscs,

crustaceans, frozen shrimps and prawns and pet food.

 

Imports of these products had been worth 327.7 million euros

(HK$2.22 billion) in 2000.

 

Most food produced in China still falls far short of the higher

standards set in Western countries, partly because of the extremely high

soil and water pollution in the countryside.

 

China's rural industries are responsible for discharging

enormous amounts of untreated chemicals directly into the water, leaving

toxic residues in crops and animals.

 

In addition, Chinese officials have refused to acknowledge the

existence of infectious diseases such as foot-and-mouth that are common

among pigs, cattle and sheep in many parts of the country.

 

The disease is euphemistically referred as to as the " number

five " disease in China.

 

In the past, Russia and other countries have banned imports of

Chinese pork from Sichuan province because animals there were found to be

infected.

 

In addition to permitting EU inspections, China has also

completed a six-month review of its' own of the country's rice and cooking

oil supplies in which 100,000 inspectors looked at 60,000 businesses engaged

in producing wheat flour, vinegar, sauces, cooking oil and rice.

 

Chinese officials' concerns about allowing unsanitary imports of

foreign grain or genetically modified foods is seen as partly pandering to

the domestic audience.

 

For political reasons, officials want to be seen as being tough

on imports at the same time as Chinese food producers are forced to match

foreign standards.

 

WTO membership is forcing a readjustment of China's rural

economy for which it is ill-prepared.

 

Beijing wants to change the crops grown to include more soybeans

and less corn. But whatever happens over the next decade, imports are

expected to increase steadily.