BRUSSELS, Aug 31: The European Union’s top health official is to visit China next week to press senior government officials about improving food safety, the European Commission said on Friday.

During the Sept 6-14 visit, EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou is to meet Vice Premier Wu Yi and other senior ministers to discuss “practical steps” for improving food safety such as training, exchanging information and technical cooperation.“Chinese products account for the largest number of food safety alerts to our rapid alert system, and this trend is growing,” Kyprianou said in a statement.

“While this partly reflects the volume of trade, it is also symptomatic of a number of problems we have encountered which need to be addressed,” he added.

Separately, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, Europe’s top antitrust regulator, is to visit China on Sept 3-4 for cooperation talks following the adoption this week of an anti-monopoly law this week in China.—AFP