BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers are considering a law to ensure food safety amid increasing incidence of food scandals.

    The draft law on food safety was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature, for the first reading on Wednesday.

    Cao Kangtai, Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council director, told the legislative session that food safety incidents occurred from time to time. Unsafe factors existed in many kinds of food, which caused the public to lose confidence in domestic food and damaged the reputation of China-made food around the world.

    "A lack of systematic food safety standards and supervision network are to blame," he said.

    In his report on supervision of food and drug safety, delivered to the legislative session, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu said pollution in food-producing areas, pesticide residue, food packaging made of materials that might pose safety risks and substandard small-scale food production facilities were problems remaining in the food sector.

    Some local governments had failed to step up their supervision of food safety or hesitated to revoke the licenses of illegal or substandard food manufacturers, which caused the current problems, Chen said.

    China has a food hygiene law, which took effect in 1995, to regulate issues of food safety but many lawmakers said it didn't meet the need of practice.

    China considered revising the food hygiene law in 2004. The Legislative Affairs Office conducted inspections in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces, researched food safety laws and regulations of foreign countries, and collected suggestions from experts on law, health, agriculture, and quarantine. It also called for a seminar of Chinese and U.S. food safety experts in September 2005, he said.

    Based on the research, the office made revisions to the food hygiene law and changed the name into draft law on food safety. It was passed by the State Council on Oct. 31, according to Cao.

    The draft, based on the food hygiene law, imposed strict examinations on food imports and exports.

    It stated "imported food should be in accordance with the national food safety standards and labeling system. Exported food should meet the requirements of destination countries and pass the examination of inspection and quarantine institutions of foreign countries."

    The draft proposed a food safety risk evaluation mechanism, providing a "key basis" for constituting food safety standards and food-born disease control measures.

    A related supervision system, covering food production, processing, delivery, storage and sales, should be set up to ensure every procedure was under control.

    It said national food safety standards should be constituted by departments authorized by the State Council.

    It also stipulated a labeling system requiring food manufacturers to be responsible for statements about ingredients, additives, expiration dates and functions on user manuals and packages.

    The draft law also called to establish a recall system to urge food producers and dealers to stop producing, selling and to recall unsafe food if problems are found.

    "Food called back should be destroyed or undergo harmless treatment," it said.

    The draft proposed a national food safety information release system.

    Food safety warnings, food safety incidents and other information that may cause the public to panic should be released by departments authorized by the State Council, it read.

    "The information release should be accurate, objective and in time. Explanations on harm caused by unsafe food should be made public," it said.

    Food producers and dealers, which made or sold the meat of animals that died of disease, poison or unspecified reasons, food with banned ingredients, and baby food with substandard materials, would be severely punished, according to the draft.

    Officials of food safety supervision departments would also face severe penalty if found to abuse or dereliction of duty, it said.

    The 31st session of the 10th NPC Standing Committee started on Sunday and ran until Saturday.

    China has about 448,000 food production and processing companies, which generated total output value of 1.28 trillion yuan (175 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, up 29.9 percent year-on-year.

    Since last year, Chinese industries have been under the spotlight of domestic and foreign consumers with concerns about substandard products, especially food. The scandals have included vegetables with pesticide residue, fish contaminated with suspected carcinogens and eggs tainted with the industrial dye Sudan Red.

    In response to the reported scandals, the Chinese government introduced a new recall system this past summer, began a four-month national product quality inspection campaign and issued a measure that requires labeling of all food exports with an inspection and quarantine symbol.

    Statistics showed that during the four-month campaign, 626 criminal cases involving 774 suspects were filed over substandard food and drug products. A total of 192,400 unlicensed food shops were closed and some 1,253.5 tons of substandard food were withdrawn.

    At the end of October, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued a joint statement, vowing to strengthen cooperation in food safety, promote food trade and protect consumers' rights.

    China and the U.S. signed 31 agreements, including food safety and product quality, during the Sino-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue this month.

Editor: Bi Mingxin