September 14, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 1, 1428

BEIJING, Sept 13: China is making a good progress in solving its food safety problems and should not be singled out as a global danger, said an official on Thursday.“They are on the right track,” Jorgen Schlundt, director of the WHO’s department of food safety, told AFP with regard to China’s campaign to improve its food standards.

“It’s not going to solve everything, it needs more profound changes and I think they know that.”

In late August, China launched a four-month campaign to improve the quality of its products and restore confidence in its food and drug industries.

It has also introduced systems enabling recalls of dangerous goods.

“China’s highest level has made important statements in the last couple of weeks,” Schlundt said. “It has the high level political push.” He said China should not be singled out for particular concern over food safety, which he called a global problem.

He cited the example of BSE or mad cow disease, which hit Britain in the mid-1980s. Schlundt said it took Britain a long time to overcome the problem.

China needs international support and cooperation from the developed world on how to tackle food safety problems, for example, through information sharing in emergency situations, he said.

“It’s really an international responsibility,” he said.

Schlundt is in Beijing for the two-day China International Food Safety and Quality Conference, organised a year ago by Chinese authorities before the recent rash of safety scandals.—AFP