China says food safety push "hits targets early"

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's four-month food safety campaign managed to hit its targets early, with officials seizing thousands of tainted products and putting many unregulated shops and eateries out of business, a state newspaper said on Thursday.

Scandals involving substandard food, drugs and other goods are reported by Chinese media almost every day, and the issue has burst into the international spotlight since tainted additives exported from China contaminated pet food in North America.

The nationwide sweep netted 1.25 million kg (2.76 million lb) of substandard food and 945 tons of pork which had been slaughtered in illegal abattoirs or came from pigs which had died of disease, the Communist Party's People's Daily reported.

Inspectors shut 192,400 unlicensed food producers and pulled 29,800 products from the shelves, the front-page report added.

And 100 percent of stores in larger towns and cities now had a quality-label system in place and could trace back where their supplies came from, it said.

"The State Council's determined aim of putting in place the 'two 100 percents' and 'a thorough resolution' for food safety by the end of the year has been achieved early," the newspaper said, using typically turgid language.

Worries about the safety of the made-in-China mark have provoked such anger in some circles in the United States that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would ban all Chinese-made toys.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang did not respond to Obama's comments directly but stressed that the vast majority of Chinese goods were safe.

"Not all U.S. goods are up to standard," he told a news conference. "Does that mean we can use it as an excuse to ban all U.S. products? I think that is not objective, not rational and not fair."

Millions of toys made in China have been recalled this year, many by U.S. giant Mattel, mainly because of excessive levels of lead paint.

China has acknowledged problems, and insists it is cracking down. But it has also accused the foreign media of hyping up the issue with hysterical reporting.

Problems with food safety are particularly pronounced in China's vast countryside, where lax oversight of the many small factories has contributed to a string of food poisoning incidents.

Most recently, four children in the poor southern province of Yunnan died after eating a dried-noodle snack.

Public fears about food safety grew in 2004, when at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province, in eastern China, after they were fed fake milk powder.

The People's Daily said the latest campaign, spearheaded by Vice Premier Wu Yi, had been a "valuable experience", and praised the hard work of the inspectors.

"It effectively guarantees food safety for consumers in the market," it added.

(Editing by Nick Macfie and Roger Crabb)