China's food safety supervisors on Thursday reiterated their confidence in supplies for next month's Beijing Olympic Games, saying athletes can rely on catering services at the Olympic village.
China is "capable and confident" of ensuring the absolute safety of food supplied to the Games, said Tang Yunhua, a Beijing Food Safety Administration official.
She said the capital's food quality control department had sent inspectors to monitor the entire process of Olympic food supply, from production to the table, making sure nothing would go wrong.
"We shoulder this responsibility for the perfect safety of Olympic food. We are capable and confident of it," she told a press conference.
She said the city government had enormously improved its monitoring and supervision systems since 2005 by implementing a special action plan for the safety of Olympic food, as well as local laws concerning food safety.
Under the system, inspectors were sent to monitor the entire supply chain, including certified farm producers, food processing factories, storage and transport businesses, Tang said.
Supervisory agents had even closely monitored the use of animal feed and pesticides in order to prevent any possible health risk, she said.
Tang brushed off the worries of some countries that possible food safety problems, such as residual drugs in animal feed, could jeopardize the performance of their athletes.
"China has adopted strict national standards for food safety, which are largely in line with the international CAC (Codex Alimentarius Commission) standards," Tang said.
"We are completely capable of guaranteeing food safety for the Olympics in accordance with our national standards," she added.
All meat, dairy products and eggs supplied to the Olympic Village that will house and feed some 16,000 people during the Games had met the standards and were safe to eat, Tang said.
Kang Yi, chief of the catering division for the Olympics organizing committee, also expressed her confidence in food safety.
Asked why the U.S. Olympic team decided to use their own food, as the U.S. media had reported earlier this year, Kang said no athletes would be allowed to bring their own food into the Olympic village in line with international practice.
The U.S. Olympic delegation is staying at the Beijing Normal University.
Xu Kang, Vice Counsel and spokesman of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, said the city had diversified supply channels in order to guarantee constant and stable supplies of grain, cooking oil, meat, poultry products and vegetables during the Olympics.
(Xinhua News Agency August 1,2008)